


The Widespread Delusion Of Love

by SpicyReyes



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Emotional Manipulation, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Food is People, Hannibal is his own warning, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Slow Burn, Someone Helps Will Graham (Sort Of), eventual dark!Will, rewrite of an old fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-31
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-22 05:05:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 50,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11960307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpicyReyes/pseuds/SpicyReyes
Summary: “Say that I took the...fake relationship thing seriously,” Will said, carefully. “Say I wanted to fake like I was managing something I wasn’t to trick Jack into letting me get back to what I’m good at. How willing would you be to...help?”Hannibal leaned against his counter, eyeing Will with amusement. “If you are trying to propose I be your other person, your romantic declarations are quite lacking.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I published this fic originally around 2013, then tried to rewrite it in 2015, and then was reminded of it the other day by a friend who went through my old works and found it.  
> She claimed to love it, so I looked at it, and wanted to _die_ at the errors in it. So this happened.  
>  Third time's the charm, boys.

The world was fuzzy and swimming, hard to hold onto, and Will struggled to get a grasp on his own mind.

_ It is 4:35am,  _ he told himself, even as the watch face blurred in front of his eyes.  _ I am in Baltimore, Maryland. My name is Will Graham. _

…Wait.

He looked up from his watch, looking around the familiar room. Hannibal’s office - but why would he be at  _ Hannibal’s  _ at four in the morning? 

He turned back to look at his watch, wondering if the distorted image told him the wrong time, only to catch a glimpse of something entirely more alarming: blood. Red and tacky, crusting on his thumb and forefinger, while running fresh from the hidden inside of his clenched hand. He unwrapped it reflexively, looking for a wound, and watched something drop from it. 

A blade. Small, thin, pointed - a surgical knife. It made sense, if he was at Hannibal’s, he supposed. The doctor did have a bunch of questionable items laying around, either for sharpening his pencils or simply because he had a strangely macabre aesthetic. 

He looked back to the cut on his hand, and twitched the muscles of his fingers, testing. No pain - the wound could be entirely in his own imagination. 

Which, honestly, everything could have been. He wasn’t really sure why he bothered debating what was real anymore. 

He moved across the plush carpets of Lecter’s office to the man’s desk, figuring that was probably a good point to start looking for why exactly he had a knife off it in his hand in the first place.

On the surface of the desk sat a drawing of a man, stretched out in a pose similar to those Greek statues would have been chiseled into, but the drawing itself was of little importance when combined with the pool of blood soaking into it. 

The blood spread out in faint lines in two directions - toward the spot Will had started off standing in, and toward the other end of the desk, where the original source likely was. 

He stepped around the desk with his breath held, and looked to the floor.

“Oh, Christ,” he muttered, horrified and  _ hoping  _ he was hallucinating. Lying on the floor was Alana Bloom, half-gutted in a brutal manner that spoke of a desperate act. It was unfinished. Will’s brain began turning the facts over on automatic: was the killer unable to finish? Too emotional? Distracted? Or…

Stopped.

Kneeling next to the body of Will’s friend sat the man who would have seen it, the man who would have stopped it.  _ Hannibal Lecter. _

“Well, now, Will,” Hannibal said, accented voice oddly polite as always. “You have made quite the mess of this, and now my office is to be a crime scene.” He tipped his head, and Will could see shadows crawl across his skin, painting him differently, twisting him into some entirely new creature. “How am I to handle this?”

Movement caught his eye, and Will snapped his gaze to it, watching as the stag statue that haunted him so came to life enough to slide forward, shifting to hunch its shoulders and lower its head. 

Its antlers brushed the podium beneath it, and Will saw it for what it was-...

  
  


“A bow of respect?”

Will jumped slightly at Hannibal’s interruption, having gotten a bit lost in his retelling of his dream. “Ah, no,” he denied. “It felt like...disappointment. Like it thought I could have done better.”

“At what part?” Hannibal asked, watching him with the steady and unreadable stare of a psychoanalyst that set Will’s teeth on edge.

“I’d imagine the gutting,” he offered, shooting for sarcasm but hitting more along the lines of exasperation. “But your guess is as good as mine. Better, I guess, since you seem to understand my head better than me most of the time.” 

“Untrue,” Hannibal countered. “Your mind is a mystery to me, but a familiar territory to you. I do not understand it better - but I do understand the troubles that plague it, and those I am more suited to handle than you, if only through practice.” 

“So between the two of us,” Will summarized, “We have one fully functioning Will Graham.”

“A feat not to be dismissed.” Hannibal gave his tiny little smile at Will, and the empath weakly returned it. 

“Well, in that case,” Will shifted in the chair, slouching back into the corner of the seat before immediately straightening back up, the urge to get more comfortable warring with the need to match Hannibal’s politeness in his mind. “Maybe one of us can figure out why exactly my dreams keep making me kill people.”

Hannibal hummed. “I have a theory, if you will.” When Will waved for him to carry on, he folded his hands, explaining his thoughts. “The dream could be your psyche attempting to sort through different areas of your life, illustrating them in a way that makes sense to you. Alana Bloom is the figure you most heavily associate with stability - something you fear you are losing. She was your victim, mirroring how you worry you are killing your own mind with your choice of profession. The kill style was most certainly Abigail. It could be assumed you killed Alana while connected to her mind. It was left unfinished, which could be a sign of your frustrations to the cases like Elliot Budish, which resolve themselves without you.”

Will drug a hand roughly across the thigh of his jeans, trying to distract himself from the spinning in his mind. “So, what you’re saying is, every detail was another neurosis?” 

“Not quite,” Hannibal said, with a small smile. “My involvement, for example, would be totally rational: your mind associates this office with sorting through your thoughts, and my presence with revelations of self-esteem. Me being seen as a wicked creature could be resentment for hiding Abigail’s secret from you - also a normal reaction.”

“And the knife?” Will asked. “The cut on my hand? Do I even want to know what that was?”

“If I had to hazard a guess,” Hannibal said, slowly, “I’d say it was a warning from your subconscious. A way of telling you that each time you let yourself become another person, you damage your sense of self a bit more.”

Will looked away, turning that thought over in his head - and entirely missing the somewhat smug look that crawled across the doctor’s face. 

  
  
  


Will’s work tended to take on a pattern, in which he was presented with increasingly intense psychiatric profiles and told to assume them, to walk their steps as them and tell Jack where the road leads both to and from. 

The case of the Dollmaker was no different, and though Will looked at Frankenstein worked dolls of young girls and knew he wanted no part of the man’s mind, he had no choice. 

He was a hound on a leash, but as long as he was not tethered or muzzled, he could bear it. 

He closed his eyes, and let the pendulum swing.

  
  


_ She is perfect. She is special.  _

Hands moved quick, darting across skin, mapping out the body that would never again breathe life. Memorizing the details. 

_ No one will match her.  _

Eyes scanned faces of strangers and friends alike, searching for the right clay to mold. 

_ Find one who has nothing.  _

A poor girl, standing at the edge of the street, eyes hollow and haunted.

_ Offer her everything.  _

A helping hand can turn the hardest of hearts soft. 

_ Prime the clay. _

Buy her meals and her diet is yours. Buy her clothes and her style is yours. Cut her hair, paint her nails, change it all.

_ Spin up the potter’s wheel. _

A sleeping pill pressed into a palm is simple to accept. And to increase the dosage, to change the intake, to form a habit - all simple psychology.

_ Begin sculpting.  _

She does not feel the knife when you take her breath. She will not feel it move the limbs, feel it cut flesh and bone to make the proper shape.  _ Her  _ shape.

_ Set the mold.  _

Embalming fluid in a tub, a nightgown pulled over a body to hide stitches, a sheet tucked in around the shoulders of a perfect copy.

_ Break one pot, make a thousand - it will not ever be good enough. _

  
  


“Yo, Graham.”

Will startled out of the dissociative state, brain slowly clicking back into awareness of his surroundings. A thousand details danced just beyond his reach, and he mourned them, because he would never get deep enough again to see them. That point of view was lost to him.

_ My daughter,  _ he thought, and then shook his head, reaching to massage his temples.  _ No.  _ **_His_ ** _ daughter. His daughter is dead. _

“His daughter,” he said, hopefully out loud. “She died, he’s trying to remake her, but it’s-...”

Blood.

The fingers pressed to his temple were covered in  _ blood.  _

He pulled his hand around, staring at mangled flesh, spotted with shards of broken glass. He looked up, and in front of him was a mirror, shattered into a million tiny fractures. 

There was something  _ in  _ his hand, and when he opened it, it revealed itself a soft piece of silk, its original pastel color now hopelessly bloodstained. 

Strange, he thought, that he would grab a cloth he could have used to protect his hand - and, instead, held it in his palm, as though his hand were protecting  _ it.  _

“He’s back with us,” Beverly’s voice called beside him, simultaneously far too close and miles away. “I hope.”

“As much as he ever is,” someone replied, but the world was swimming, and Will had no thought to spare for who it was.

Eyes falling back shut, his mind fled the moment.

The blood on his hand became water, the silk became a fish, and he was knee-deep in a calm river, more than happy to ignore the fraying of the edges of the rope his sanity dangled on. 

  
  
  


Will supposed it said a lot about him that the pain of glass shards being plucked from his skin was a secondary sensation to the annoying scrape of the powdery nitrile gloves the doctor wore brushing against his hands every few seconds. 

God, he wished they wouldn’t wear those. Then again, bare hands would have been worse - his hands were sensitive, and skin-to-skin contact there had always been far too intimate feeling for comfort. 

Jack’s feet passed through the square space of title that Will had locked his eyes to, and once again, he flicked them up to the height of the man’s shoulder, took in the sight of him talking angrily into a phone, and dropped his gaze again.

_ Scrape. Scrape. Pluck.  _

He was going to  _ scream.  _

Suddenly, his gaze was forcibly focused on something shoved in front of his face. His brain scrambled to recognize it.  _ Phone. Jack’s phone. In call. No contact picture, contact sorted by last name- oh, wait, it’s Hannibal. _

Jack shook the phone slightly, and Will somehow got his non-damaged hand to cooperate, reaching up to accept the device and bring it to his own ear.

There was a pause, and then Will realized the man might be waiting on him to acknowledge he had the phone.

_ Speak, Will. _

_ …. _ **_Speak_ ** _.   _

Will managed a forced hum, words flitting away whenever he tried to reach for them. 

“Hello, Will,” Hannibal’s smooth voice greeted him, the baritone that strange mix of soothing and captivating, encouraging him to listen to each word but keep him from fixating on any particular one. It was a nice voice, and one Will found it easy to follow.

That didn’t mean he wanted to hear what it had to say, most of the time, but at least he wasn’t being scolded by someone whose voice grated. 

“Jack informs me you injured yourself during a case,” Hannibal said.

Words still fled from Will’s thoughts, but his mouth seemed content to carry on without him. “Can we skip to the part where you tell me what happened?”

“I was about to ask you the same,” Hannibal told him. “Albeit a bit differently.”

“There’s glass in my hand and I don’t remember putting it there,” Will told him, tone bland. “I’m in the lab and I don’t remember getting here. I don’t know this lab tech and he’s wearing nitrile gloves, and the microtextures of the fingertips are about to drive me insane. More so.”

The hands on his paused for a second, before hesitantly continue their path. A summary of the behavior of those around him: tentative, but persistent. Consideration for his wants only insofar as to avoid losing cooperation. 

“It sounds as though you dissociated,” Hannibal said, unnecessarily. “A rather intense spell, in fact. Have you had any more of these recently?”

“No,” Will said. “The last case I worked was Tobias Bulge, and I was fine.” Relatively speaking, at least, but Hannibal would know what he meant. “This is new.”

Hannibal hummed. “Use our grounding exercise, from the clock test,” he said. “As you run through it, hand the phone back, if you’d please.”

“Telling Jack to cut me off?” He said, aiming for a joke but hitting a bitter tone instead. “I think he figured that one out on his own.”

“I am not to suggest anything so drastic,” Hannibal said. “I was called for an opinion, and my opinion is that you saw something your brain connected to, and you mind tried to save itself from its loss of identity by grounding you back to your body, using pain.” 

Will sighed, and hummed once more before passing the phone back, too mentally exhausted for a reply.

“Lecter?” Jack paused, listening the crackle of Hannibal’s reply through the speaker. “No, I’m not writing this one off. This was a contamination of a crime scene, on top of a major episode - I can’t just let it be.” 

Will bit his lip, turning away. As his teeth drew blood on the inner corners of his mouth, he closed his eyes, and returned to the river.

The fish were catching well, it seemed.

  
  
  


“Will.”

Will dragged himself from the river to look up to Jack, who was watching him with a tense and serious expression.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as Will’s stomach flipped. “But I can’t have you on jobs when I don’t know how much damage I’m doing. I need you on cases, but until I can be sure I’m not going to make this happen again, you’re grounded. Teach your classes, help us on kidnappings, that’s fine, but I’m keeping you at arm's’ length on everything else.”

Will frowned. “The whole point of me helping was that I was solving cases that couldn’t be handled, and you want to give that to someone else? People will die. I’m more use-...”

“You’re more  _ use  _ not hospitalized,” Jack pressed. “And considering I’m pretty sure you’ve only been with us for about ten minutes total today, that’s the alternative.” He clapped a hand over Will’s shoulder. “Get better, and come back. This isn’t permanent.” 

He left the room, and Will took a long, deep breath. 

The next thing he knew, he was driving to Hannibal’s.

  
  
  


“He  _ relieved me of my duties,”  _ Will spat. 

Hannibal raised an eyebrow, looking up from the wine he was pouring. “Not a move I’d have anticipated,” he offered as a response. “Jack seemed adamant that maintenance of your mental health would fall upon me so long as you were physically capable of working.”

“Well, he doesn’t think I am.” Will stopped his pacing, dropping into one of Hannibal’s barstools. “Every single thing he hands me from now on is going to be a test to see what breaks me.”

Hannibal hummed. “Up until such a point as he is given reason to trust your mind to hold itself together.”

“Yeah, well, unless you have a miracle cure for dissociation,” Will drawled, “I’m afraid I’m benched.”

“Dissociation is simple to manage with grounding exercises, most of the time,” Hannibal told him. “I’ve no doubt you will be fine when you adjust. You are remarkably resilient.” 

Will snorted. “If you mean I’m too stubborn to just accept I’m going crazy, sure.”

Hannibal shook his head, and sat a glass of wine in front of Will, coming to sit at the barstool next to him. “If Jack is merely looking for a sign of stability, there are surely ways to prove you are in command of your own faculties.” 

“Not one I can think of.”

“Then perhaps I could help,” Hannibal offered. “There must be things you doubt yourself capable of. Allow me to help you obtain smaller goals, and they will build to a larger one.”

“Other than a full night’s sleep and any kind of social interaction, I’ve never even  _ attempted  _ anything that would prove I’m one end or the other on the scale of stable.” 

“Social,” Hannibal murmured. “Perhaps you could work on your relationships. Friendships and such require a certain amount of conscious upkeep.” 

“Problem is,” Will said, “I hate talking to people.”

Hannibal smiled. “We are talking, right now, and you seem unopposed.” 

Will looked away. “You are at least polite enough to keep it to yourself if you think I’ve lost it,” he said. “And you’re...false.”

Hannibal blinked, taken aback. “Pardon?”

Will shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t know what it is, but there’s some sort of...wall, when I look at you. All your psychology training gives you the knowledge of how to block yourself off, make yourself hard to read. Sometimes you shift or stutter or act like something affects you and it feels...measured. Calculated.” He shrugged. “Sometimes I catch you at it, and you seem...relieved. Like you aren’t so much hiding under all your manners, but trapped, and I saw through the bars of the cage.”

“A...fascinating analysis,” Hannibal breathed, blood rushing with adrenaline as he took in how wonderfully this man saw him, how easily he picked apart what he was, only being fooled by the bits of disguise he allowed himself to believe. 

Will Graham could be his undoing, and Hannibal  _ lived  _ for it. 

“Yeah, well,” Will said, oblivious to Hannibal’s inner turmoil. “I empathize. It’s what I do. And, anyway, if you’re trapped by your manners, I’m trapped by my lack of them.”

“You are remarkably polite, actually,” Hannibal told him. “Given that social cues are foreign to you, each common courtesy you manage is entirely for the benefit of those around you, which is a better display of good manners than knowing every bit of proper etiquette available.” At Will’s uncomfortable shift, Hannibal backed off, returning to their topic at hand. “Perhaps a genuine improvement would not be the key - the things you struggle with are rarely paid any mind by those who do not actively look for them. You’d need a more dramatic shift.”

“So I’ll get someone to fall madly in love with me and elope to France,” Will said, dryly. “And then move back and beg Jack to let me look at dead people some more.”

“Perhaps not something that dramatic.” Hannibal took a long, measured drink of wine, making a show of thinking it over. “...Though, you may be on the right track. Alana Bloom has made it very clear she thinks you incapable of maintaining romantic relationships. To form one and stick with it would be quite a declaration.”

“Okay, so you’re suggesting I  _ fake  _ a relationship,” Will drawled. “I’m sure the people I know will be perfectly willing to lie to keep me in a job they don’t even want me doing. Since everyone thinks it’s going to break me.”

“I don’t think any such thing,” Hannibal countered. “Quite the contrary. Each person you save gives you a drive to continue, to look deeper and search harder. I’d see you continue if only for that reason.”

Will looked at him, then ground his teeth, looking away again. 

“You have a thought,” Hannibal observed. “By all means, share.”

“Say that I took the...fake relationship thing seriously,” Will said, carefully. “Say I wanted to fake like I was managing something I wasn’t to trick Jack into letting me get back to what I’m good at. How willing would you be to...help?”

Hannibal leaned against his counter, eyeing Will with amusement. “If you are trying to propose I be your other person, your romantic declarations are quite lacking.”

Will shot him a glare, which fizzled out instantly at the sight of the easy smile on the doctor’s face.

It looked...real. Sharp and pleased, as though Will had accidentally stumbled right into the best outcome for Hannibal.

“I am the person you trust most beyond Alana,” Hannibal said. “And you coming to me once thoroughly frustrated by Jack is a logical course of action, as well as what you actually did. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that you would have been emotional enough for drastic actions, and that the conversations we have would have escalated into something else entirely.”

Will winced, because he was pretty sure Hannibal was saying it was believable that Will would  _ jump him.  _ Not something he was really proud of, that. “Are you saying…?”

“I will serve as your partner in this,” Hannibal confirmed. “I will play this act opposite you as long as it is needed.” He set a hand gently on Will’s shoulder, giving him the strange pleased look again. “For now, go home. Rest. Join me for breakfast tomorrow - we will discuss it in the morning.”

Will nodded quickly, and made his retreat, mind whirling at the turn of events.

Somehow, some way, this was going to backfire..but he was oddly unconcerned. 

If nothing else, it would serve as an interesting insight into who Hannibal Lecter was under all his propriety. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The lies begin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to wait and post this when it was longer but it was inching dangerously toward being Too Long so I split it   
> Don't want you guys getting false hope that I'm a prolific writer

Waking in the morning was disorienting enough on its own, for Will, too used to coming into consciousness in the dead of night in a pool of sweat, but it had an added layer of surrealism due to the fact that his first thought was  _ I am fake dating Hannibal Lecter.  _

He reached out, blindly fumbling for his glasses, and then hunted down his phone to call the doctor. There was no way that his brain had come up with something as ridiculous as a fake relationship on its own - he needed to verify that it was  _ real.  _

“Will,” Hannibal’s voice greeted when the line picked up. “Are we still to have breakfast this morning?”

Well, that answered that, he supposed. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m gonna head that way in a second. I just...needed to double check.”

“Understandable,” Hannibal said, sounding honestly understanding in a way that always left Will conflicted. “Yesterday’s events were a bit strange, and I can imagine you found it hard to take on memory alone.” 

Will wondered if Hannibal  _ intended  _ how vague some of the things he said came out. He had a feeling the doctor never said anything outright, only lead people into stating it themselves.

Well, at least it would come in handy, if they were going to con the FBI.

_ Christ _ . What was he doing?

“Will?”

“Oh, sorry,” Will startled. “I’m heading that way, now. Just let me feed my dogs. And shower.”

“Take your time. I’ve no appointments today until noon.”

Will hummed an acknowledgement, and hung up, belatedly realizing he probably should have said some form of goodbye and wincing at his own awkwardness. One day, he’d learn social cues.  _ Eventually.  _

In the meantime, he needed to get ready. He supposed, in a way, he was about to have his first date with Hannibal Lecter. 

  
  
  


Hannibal was cooking when Will arrived.

‘Cooking’ was a term Will used loosely - this was not what he thought of as a typical meal prep. Will’s ‘cooking’ consisted of piling things into a pan or pot while half asleep and hoping something edible came out the other side. 

This was  _ art. _

His hands moved fluidly between knives, between foods, between pots and pans. He went from whisking eggs in a glass bowl to turning over sausages in a pan to chopping up vegetables all without so much as a pause. His steps seemed measured and light, like a dance, and Will could see the corners of his mouth twitching up ever so slightly - a rare smile, not for show, but for enjoyment. Hannibal loved to cook, and it showed. 

Hannibal looked up, then, catching him staring. “Hello, Will,” he greeted. 

Will simply nodded in response, voice failing him, still too much into his own head.

Hannibal didn’t seem bothered, just pressed on. “I’ve given some thought, over the night, to how to best go about setting a ruse.” 

“Prepared our coming out speech?”

Hannibal let out a soft laugh. “Quite the contrary, actually. Telling people outright is not exactly typical behavior for new couples.”

Will frowned. “A fair point, but it kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?”

“Not at all.” Hannibal cracked another egg into the bowl of them he was mixing - intermixed with what appeared to be milk and some sort of flaky white seasoning - and gestured for Will to sit as he explained. “Your coworkers are confident in their own ability to determine the causes of people’s behavior, either through investigative work or psychiatric analysis. The easiest way to lie to people like that is to never lie at all.” 

“I’m not following.”   
Hannibal smiled. “No, I suppose I’m speaking in circles. Simply put: if you change your behavior, they will want to find out why. Once they are entirely confident they know the cause, nothing you say or do will change their mind. The best way to lie to a person that is confident in their judgements is to mislead them into lying to themselves.”

Will twitched. “Is it a psychiatrist thing, that you’re so good at this?” 

Hannibal laughed. “I took a particular interest, in my studies, on the...well, the sort of ‘dark ages’ of psychology. The brief period of time where humans were curious about the brain, but not cautious in how they approached it. Some truly sickening studies were done - but because of them, we know quite a lot about the human mind that we would not have otherwise. Including a fair bit about psychiatric conditioning.”

“Uh-huh,” Will hummed, watching the man closely. Hannibal had that  _ look,  _ again, like he had something just at the tip of his tongue, but wasn’t quite ready to let it out. Like he was afraid any little detail would be the straw that broke the camel’s back - but not like Alana. Alana worried about his psyche, about what point would break him.

Hannibal seemed more...defensive. Like he didn’t want to show too much, lest Will simply take it and run. 

“You are empathizing with me,” Hannibal murmured. “Tell me, Will, what do you see?” 

“Nothing,” Will answered, entirely honest. “I see the walls you put up. Is that what you’re doing with me, Dr. Lecter? Giving me just enough rope to hang myself?”

Hannibal gave him the stare he’d pointed out before, the  _ you-saw-more-than-I-thought  _ pleased look. “You could see it that way, I suppose. But I don’t think you will.” He shifted, moving to finish his cooking. “The real question is, will you choose to hang  _ me  _ with it?”

Will didn’t bother chasing that rabbit - the hole would lead him right back out again, knowing Hannibal. 

Instead, he followed the man into silence. Time alone with his thoughts was welcome, and it looked to be what Hannibal needed at the moment as well. 

“Perhaps speaking outright my work a bit,” Hannibal said, after he’d apparently parsed out whatever thought had been weighing on him. “You are keen to vent, happy to share a thought a single time and take comfort in the weight off your shoulders. Pick someone you care for - Alana, perhaps - and tell them we’ve begun a relationship, and then leave it. It’s unlikely to remain a ‘secret’ for long, that way, while still fitting our psychological strategy.” 

“I really don’t want to know how often you lie, to be this good at it,” Will said.

Hannibal gave him that half-false smile, a light Will couldn’t read sparking in his eyes. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.”

  
  
  


While he may not have made the leap in logic himself, Will understood the strategy presented to him once Hannibal laid it out. He did, in fact, know how minds worked, and how social behaviors could be read and interpreted by different people.

His own behavior leaned towards open body language and unfiltered speech, making him an open book to most people. However, it was easy for him to hide in his own exposure, playing up one thing to bury another. 

Convincing someone he was hiding something would be simple: downplay the social phobia, upscale the anxiety. 

Choosing Alana wasn’t really much of a choice at all: he only spoke to a handful of people, and she was both the one he’d most likely tell a real secret and the one he could count on most to immediately inform Jack. 

“You wanted to see me?” the woman in question asked, stepping into his classroom with a tense-set jaw that spoke of hesitation: she didn’t trust him, not fully, and coming into his classroom was done with the acceptance of the fact she could not predict what he would say or do. 

A fair concern, considering he was never quite sure, himself.

Looking at Alana’s face, his mind went blank, any and all lies fleeing from his thoughts, leaving him scrambling for something to say.

“I’m sorry,” he began, before stopping, unsure how to continue.

“...For what?” Alana asked. When Will shifted his weight between his foot, hesitating in his answer, she gave him a look of tense concern. “Will, what happened?”

_ What did you do?  _

It went unspoken, but he heard it all the same.

“Nothing, I just,” he let out a harsh breath, and closed his eyes, letting his mind slide out of the situation.

_ Lie,  _ he told himself.  _ You have the skill, put it to  _ **_use._ **

“I realized I probably owed you an apology,” he said, slowly. “For the other day. When I kissed you.”

She was frowning when he looked up. “It’s fine, Will. Consider it forgotten. Why apologize now?”

“Because I may have...done it again.”

She blinked. “You kissed someone?” She tipped her head, black hair spilling over one shoulder, warm brown eyes fixing on him with the analytical stare of a psychiatrist. 

He  _ hated  _ that stare, but it would only help him in the long run, so he bit down on his fight-or-flight instincts and let it happen. 

“I apparently have a type,” he offered, wincing as the joke came out slightly hysterical. Hopefully she’d take it as regular anxiety. Most of his ‘jokes’ ended similarly, after all. 

“A type?”

“People who know I’m  _ unstable _ ,” Will said, barely disguising the bitterness in the last word, “but stay around anyway.”

Alana’s face had the slightest false tension to it, and he caught her thoughts as clear as if she voiced them.  **_Everyone_ ** _ knows you’re unstable, Will.  _ “...Was it Beverly? I really don’t know many women you speak to, regularly.”

“I never said-...” he cut off, brain spinning with the reminder to hold information back, to be evasive. He was not one to walk someone through something, and he needed to keep that in mind.

_ Let her make her own conclusions,  _ a voice oddly like Hannibal’s murmured to him.  _ They will feel more organic to her. _

Luckily, Alana was a good psychiatrist, and a smart woman. The leap wasn’t a hard one to make. “You...kissed a man.”

Will ran a hand through his curls, eyes flittering across the room, no longer comfortable resting on Alana’s cheek. Her whole face was expressive, not just her eyes, and he didn’t want to empathize with her when she was analyzing him. “To be fair,” he said, calling back to his conversation with Hannibal about Alana, trying to create the same scenario in reverse. “He’s very kissable.”

It sounded much stupider to him, the second time, but when his eyes passed back over Alana’s face, she looked vaguely amused.

Under layers of shock, of course, but still.

“I’m sorry, Will, but I really can’t tell who you’re talking about,” she said. “The lab boys make you uncomfortable, and I can’t see you kissing  _ Jack-...”  _

“God, no.”

“Right,” she laughed. “And then there’s just Hannibal, and…”

He watched the wheels spinning in her mind grind to a stop, churning out the only answer. 

Like the Sherlock Holmes quote:  _ when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.  _

“You kissed Hannibal.” Her voice was soft in the statement, as she visibly tried to wrap her mind around it. “You kissed  _ Hannibal?”  _

“I said I had a type,” Will replied. 

“That’s not a  _ type,  _ Will,” Alana said, sounding slightly desperate. “It’s a projection. It’s your subconscious responding to attention that’s based on professional curiosity. It’s-...”

“Reciprocated?”

Alana stared at him, a hair away from gaping. He’d gotten somewhat offended by her protests, and the interruption had just sort of spilled out. Now, though, he was glad for it. 

“Will,” she said, speaking slowly, after regaining her composure. “Are you telling me you are  _ dating  _ Hannibal Lecter?” 

He hoped his internal debate came across as something more excusable when he forced out the words  _ “I am.” _

  
  
  
  


“I’m sure there’s a very dignified and professional way to describe her running away, but I don’t know it.”

Hannibal smiled to himself as he cut into his food, offering, “A tactical retreat?”

“To regroup psychologically,” Will completed. “Very stuffy and professional. We’ll go with that. Not just ‘she needed to go tell Jack I’d completely lost it,’ at least.”

“While I can understand your offense, this will work out better for you in the long run,” Hannibal pointed out. “She will report this development to Jack, who will no doubt take her at her word and begin watching for your behavior on his own. If he sees no negative affections of this development, it will be a point in your favor.” 

“I just have to avoid making myself look bad, then,” Will said. “Easier said than done.”

“Well, I will be at your side to help you,” Hannibal promised. “We shall do this as we’ve done many things - together.” 

  
  
  
  
  


“I don’t know the time, and I don’t know where I am.” Hands twisted, wringing together and stretching out the joints, trying to ground their owner with physical stimulation. “My name is…”

_ What  _ **_is_ ** _ my name? _

It started with…

It ended with…

It sounded like…

...He didn’t know. 

_ G,  _ his mind screamed at him.  _ It starts with a G! _

_ Graham _ , he thought.  _ No, that’s not right. What else? ...Garret? _

_ Garret sounds right.  _

The rest of the name spilled into his mind like water through a broken dam, filling him with a certainty he could not remember feeling before in his life.  _ Garret Jacob Hobbs. That’s my name, right? _

_ That’s who I am. _

_ I am Garret Jacob Hobbs. _

  
  
  
  


“And then you woke up?”

Will nodded. “That was the whole dream.”

“Understandable,” Hannibal said. “Losing your identity is one of your greatest fears. It stands alone.” 

“Great,” Will breathed. “Hopefully this dream at least stays out of my head during my classes today. Sometimes they want to come back to me when I’m awake, and today is going to be hard enough.”

Hannibal hummed into the phone speaker, creating a faint static feedback that served as oddly calming white noise for Will. “Are you prepared to face Alana today, should she confront you?”

“Nope,” Will said immediately. “But I’m even less prepared to face  _ Jack,  _ if she told him.”

“You cannot hide from them for long.”

“I know, I just...” Will huffed, frustrated at his own trouble finding words. “I don’t know. I want downtime between bouts of blatant lying.”

“You needn’t necessary lie to mislead,” Hannibal reminded him. “You found it easiest to speak half-truths, correct? Continue the pattern. You did ask me into this relationship, and I did accept, even if not in the context we are claiming. And if anyone asks for details, tell them the truth: I am fond enough of you there are few things I would not try.” 

  
  
  
  
  


Will had almost been late to work. 

It had taken him a minute to stutter out a goodbye and hang up with Hannibal, taken aback by the blatant admission of care, so used to people constantly finding subtle ways to tell him how much they  _ didn’t  _ like him. 

He rushed to get to his class on time, and though he managed to get in before the scheduled start time, his reputation for always being in the classroom early had come to haunt him, making his students gather with enough time to spare that he was the last to enter the room. 

“Ah, sorry,” he apologized, quickly setting up his laptop and hooking it up to his projector. “I had a...late morning.”

He winced at his own vague explanation, and powered on his laptop, leaving his excuse at that. His password box popped up, the greyed-out desktop behind it showing that he hadn’t properly shut his computer down before, just closed it with windows still open.

He entered the password without a thought, only for his email to show itself, a list of messages with their titles pulling up to one side, and the most recent email opening in its entirety on the other.

Which, of course, was a message from Jack. Will caught the words  _ Alana  _ and  _ Dr. Lecter  _ and  _ romantic relationship  _ before quickly closing the window and barely restraining himself from slamming the computer back shut.

Giggles in the classroom informed him that enough of the student had managed to get the gist of the email, and he resigned himself to dealing with that fallout for a while.

“That’s one way to start a lesson,” he muttured. Quietly, he pulled out his phone, pulling up the spot for a new text message to Hannibal, simply leaving it open. He had no intention of actually sending a message - not in the least because Hannibal didn’t seem like much of a texter - but the idea he could send an SOS at any time was comforting. 

With that out of the way, he straightened, calling his students’ attention back to him to start his lesson.

He’d better get control over his work, there - it wasn’t like he had any other job.

  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

Alana appeared as predicted only a few minutes from the end of his class, hovering in the doorway with her body held tense.  _ Calculating,  _ Will thought.  _ How far does she want to push me? She hasn’t decided yet. _

The thoughts left a sour taste in his mouth, but he took them lightly: they didn’t ring with the instinctive certainty his empathy brought, but instead felt like they were his own conclusions, his own choice of how to view the evidence before him. 

He decided it was best to ignore her, regardless, and finished his class without so much as a second glance. As his students were leaving, he realized he probably just looked like he was being childish, making a petty display of not acknowledging her to get back for her ratting him out to Jack.

Oh, well. Too late to save his reputation - not that he really had one to begin with. 

“I take it Jack spoke to you?” Alana asked, when his last student was gone. 

Will snorted, busying himself with straightening his desk for the next class. “I saw I had an email about it. So did most of my class.” 

He felt Alana’s wince more than he saw it, with her standing behind him like she was. Will’s phone caught both of their attention with a light chime - a text from Hannibal, confirming he’d be by after Will’s next class with lunch for them both. 

His lips twitched up in a weak half smile, because his thoughts on the doctor texting had been right: he was far too formal with it, writing out full sentences with punctuation and phrasing that made it seem like the messages came from an automated service.  _ Text YES to confirm your psychiatry appointment,  _ his brain had supplied him on the first text, and he’d been laughing at it since. 

Alana stepped up to his side, watching Will curiously. “You seem happy.”

Will frowned, immediately straightening.  _ Happy  _ wasn’t how he would describe himself, and he wasn’t sure where she was getting it from. “How so?”

“I rarely find you smiling about anything,” she said. “That a lunch invite can pull that one from you is impressive. I’m half tempted to call Hannibal and congratulate him.” 

Will pursed his lips, looking away. He knew she meant it as a joke, or a reference to a relationship, but it just sent his head into images of Hannibal setting up everything like an experiment, to see if he could make Will happy when everything else just made him feel worse. 

“Will,” Alana sighed, and he could see she’d misinterpreted his discomfort. “You know I’m not angry, right? Your relationship is your own business.”

“You told Jack,” Will countered, finally looking at her. “You wouldn’t have done that if you didn’t care.”

“I’m just worried,” she said. “A relationship takes a lot of commitment and energy to maintain, and you need to focus on yourself. More than that - what happens if this ends badly? Can you handle it? I don’t want this to come away hurting you.”

_ What if he calls it off?  _

Will’s mind took Alana’s friendly concern and twisted it, pushing it down on him as crippling anxiety, making him worry about his own plans. 

_ If you can’t prove it this way, you might not ever get a chance to go back to cases. You’ll be trapped in a classroom, doing nothing to help people except making the next generation a little bit more competent.  _

_ Think of all the lives that would have been lost if your solved cases had taken longer - could you live with those losses for the price of your own sanity? _

The panic attack was not a surprise. In fact, Will almost welcomed the cold grip of terror tightening his chest, giving him something tangible to focus on. He fought to control his breathing as Alana’s worried voice began swimming in his ears, words lost on him.

His phone. He needed his phone - but as his hand fumbled for it, he realized he hadn’t the slightest idea why.

He felt the brush of fingers against his as someone took the phone from him, and some moments later - a single second or an hour, he had no way of knowing - there was a masculine voice crackling into the room, calling out to him by name. 

“ _ Will,”  _ it said, and Will finally managed to place the voice as Hannibal’s. “I need you to breathe, very carefully, please. I will be there in just shy of two hours, and you can tell me about what upset you, but for now I need you to calm yourself.”

Of course. Of course Alana called Hannibal to talk him down, because that was what he’d made of himself: a problem that could only be solved by dialing a Baltimore phone number and praying the call went through.

Heaven forbid Hannibal ever silence his cellphone while Will was working. 

He closed his eyes, taking a long breath, timing each inhale and exhale to the rhythm of his heart. In for two beats, out for two, than up to four. 

When the air in the room no longer felt like a lead weight on his shoulders, he looked back up to Alana, feeling shamed. “Sorry.” 

“It was my fault,” she said, at the same time Hannibal’s voice crackled out of the speaker with  _ “No need to apologize.”  _

He tried not to note the differences in response - or the fact that he was somehow surrounding himself with people in the profession he’d once been determined to avoid at all cost.

  
  
  
  
  


Even after Alana excused herself from the classroom, the anxious fire she’d started in him burned steady, eating him alive throughout his next class. 

The next time a shadow fell over his door, he was relieved to see it was Hannibal, holding a bag that likely contained his promised lunch. 

As his students left, he leaned back to sit slightly on the edge of his desk, watching Hannibal cross the empty space to greet him. “Lunch, as promised,” he declared, holding up his bag. “Cassoulet, as I was testing a recipe.” 

“I don’t know why the idea of you  _ testing  _ something is strange to me,” Will said. “I suppose I just sort of assumed you created meals from some weird magic.” 

“I’m afraid I save all magic for other endeavours,” Hannibal said. “Cooking was something I learned through years of study and significant effort. I rarely make errors, yes, but that is because I am extremely controlling of my work.” He pulled out two containers of soup from his bag. “I believe in only using the finest ingredients for each meal - though I do make some allowances for practice runs of new dishes. This, for instance, is made entirely with pork, rather than the mix of meats I would have chosen. Not poor quality meats, but simply...lacking, for my preference.” He nodded to Will. “I thought you would be a good person to test its palatability with. You are one to prefer the enjoyment of food for the company and comfort than the pedigree with which the ingredients were raised.”

“Is that your way of saying I like you enough that I’ll eat whatever?” Will guessed.

“Hardly,” Hannibal said, voice lilting in an almost laugh. “If I thought you lacking in judgement entirely, I would be remiss to cook for you at all. I am afraid I take a rather deep pleasure in seeing people genuinely enjoy something I have made. People with no discerning taste...seep that feeling, just a bit. There is something deeply satisfying about meeting the tastes of a picky eater.” 

Will went to respond, but paused, eyes locking on the newest figure to darken his door. “Don’t look now,” he murmured, voice thick with bitter humor, “but Jack is right behind you.”

Hannibal’s voice in his own response was softly spoken and even toned - which made it hard to be entirely certain he was joking. “Given that he relies on the two of us for intellect, and does very little physical field work, I believe we can take him.”

“ _ Relied _ ,” Will corrected. “Please don’t joke about knocking out FBI agents.”

“You find it distasteful?” Hannibal asked, sounding surprised. 

“You’re getting my hopes up,” Will corrected. “If he has to fight you, he can’t talk to me. Plus,  _ you’re dating a guy  _ is a less important story than  _ your boyfriend sort of knocked out a lead investigator.”  _

Hannibal’s nose twitched, ever so slightly, and it occurred to Will that the term ‘boyfriend’ might be a bit juvenile for the man’s tastes.

Or, perhaps he was simply becoming aware of the fact that Jack had walked up to stand next to him, and fighting the urge to make any more commentary. 

“I didn’t get a response to any of my emails,” Jack said, the harsh implication of a question barely hidden in the flat tone of the statement. “I was just coming to make sure no one took matters into their own hands.”

Will frowned, confused. “What do you mean? I only saw one email, and I honestly didn’t read it.”

Jack looked tempted to follow that particular rabbit hole, and glanced over to Hannibal with a pinched look to his eyes that suggested he’d not taken the reminder very well.

Hannibal’s chin tipped up, slightly, which Will had begun noticing he did when someone was discourteous and he had to pretend not to be bothered by it for the sake of social graces. 

Jack, quite predictably, ignored the subtle offense completely, and looked back to Will with something that could almost pass for sympathy in his eyes. “A body turned up a few cities over. A couple people tried to come get you out of habit, and we had to hold them back, but I figured I’d check in to make sure no one slipped by us.”

Will scoffed, reaching up to rub at the bridge of his nose. “Believe it or not, I know when I’m not wanted.”

“It’s necessary, Will,” Jack said. “You might not believe it, but I’m trying to do what’s best for you, here.”

The man turned and left the room, leaving Hannibal and Will alone.

There was a single beat, before Hannibal reached up and placed a hand lightly on Will’s shoulder. “Where would you like to eat our lunch, then?”

  
  
  
  


“I see,” Hannibal said, after Will had recapped his panic attack. “I can assure you, if this does not appear to be working, I can come up with an alternate plan. However, I’m confident in our ability to perform under pressure and in my assessment of the psychology of the situation. It does help, of course, that no one quite knows what to expect from us - neither of us have relationship history to serve as a basis for judging our behavior.” 

“My lack of a love life finally does me a favor,” Will said. “Exciting.”

Hannibal smiled at him, and after a beat of silence, spoke again, changing the subject. “I spent a good bit of time today thinking on your dreams.”

“Which ones?” 

“All of them, really,” Hannibal said. “You appear to be slowly sinking into more and more dissociative dreams, and I was trying to parse out a solution. It ended up coming to me when I considered your sleepwalking - your mind knows the location of your house well enough to navigate it without your conscious effort. Perhaps finding some place else to stay for a few nights would help you get better rest.”

Will frowned. “I’d need to kennel my dogs, or find someone to take them,” he said. “And I don’t really have anywhere to go.”

“While I do not have a solution for the dogs, I have one for the space,” Hannibal said. “I have a very rarely used guest bedroom. It would be getting the metaphorical two birds with the same stone - you would be given the chance to rest, and it would lend credit to our story.”

Will wasn’t really sure what possessed him to do so, but he agreed. 

  
  
  


Will’s ultimate decision on the topic of his dogs was just to hire a dogsitter to swing by his house a regularly to let the dogs out and feed them. Once he’d sorted that, he packed up a bag, hesitantly putting a few days’ worth of clothes into it and, as an afterthought, a couple towels.

Sweating on another person’s bed seemed rude.

  
  
  
  


Will was uncomfortable almost immediately upon entering Hannibal’s house, which wasn’t uncommon, but was much more stifling when he knew he was going to be  _ staying  _ there for at least the night. 

He’d suffered in silence through dinner, but as Hannibal was washing the dishes afterward - refusing Will’s help, when offered - Will confessed that he was slightly uneasy with the idea of spending extended time in some place other than his house, especially with another person present.

“I should assume so,” Hannibal said. “You build routines for yourself to compensate for the unsteady paths you take. To disrupt these routines, especially as dramatically as you have, could not be taken easily.”

Will hummed noncommittally, thought he relaxed at the explanation - Hannibal had a way of explaining his anxieties in a way that made them seem normal and understandable, which was soothing. 

Hannibal watched Will carefully for a moment, before looking to his clock. “It’s getting late. When do you usually sleep?”

“When I can’t stay awake any longer,” Will admitted. 

Hannibal nodded, before turning to his cabinets, fishing out a box and a couple of bottles. As Will watched, he prepared a pot of tea, before pouring it into a cup and sitting it on the bar in front of Will. 

“Is this supposed to make me sleepy?” Will asked.   
“Not quite,” Hannibal said. “It is to help you relax.” He reached over, setting two pills beside the cup. “ _ Those _ are to help you sleep.” 

Will eyes them warily, but eventually caved, picking them up and downing them with a sip of the tea.

It couldn’t  _ hurt. _

  
  
  


As Will’s lids grew heavy, he excused himself to go to bed, leaving Hannibal alone in the kitchen. 

A good thing, that - it gave Hannibal time to return the prescription bottles to their hiding place, hidden away so that no one would notice that the descriptions of the sleep aids of one bottle and the antiviral medications of the other were swapped. 

Placebo effect would help Will sleep enough on its own - the real work would come from the medications. The longer Will spent isolated in only Hannibal’s company, the better he would get, leaving him to associate Hannibal with recovery and peace. 

A lucid but enamored Will was one of limitless untapped potential, and Hannibal could not wait to see where that venture took them.


	4. Chapter 4

Will had developed, over time, his innate ability to tell when something was wrong, to the point where he didn’t always know  _ what  _ was off, just that things were not all as they were meant to be.

Which is why, when he woke to feeling the oppressive anxiety that came with  _ something’s not right,  _ he did not panic, but instead took time to take inventory of himself. 

His dogs were not on him, and it took him a moment to remember why, but recalling he was at Hannibal’s did not abate his concerns. He listened out, and could hear Hannibal moving about in the kitchen, likely cooking breakfast. The noises were odd, but still not the point of contention. 

He started to get up, wondering if he’d find what was bothering him elsewhere, when his hand landed on the towel he’d laid out on the guest bed to sleep on. 

_ Oh.  _

It was damp, yes, but not soaked. More than that, the sheen on his skin still felt warm, meaning he’d only started sweating recently. 

_ When the pills wore off,  _ he thought, and he took a moment to process that. The idea that Hannibal had been able to solve a problem of his so simply, when nothing Will had ever done helped.

_ What did he give me?  _

Will tried to remember what the pills looked like, but they had been pretty standard white tablets - nothing distinct enough for him to place what medication it was. 

The thing was, Will had taken sleeping medications before. He’d taken  _ several.  _ He’d also tried eating aspirins like candy and drinking weird tea and sleeping on the floor and  _ just about everything.  _

Which meant that either Hannibal gave him something stronger than he was technically meant to have, or…

Or it was the house.

Hannibal had suggested he would rest easier outside of his house. Had the combination of environment and medication been enough to help him? 

He got out of bed in a daze - dressing quickly, marvelling at the fact that he didn’t feel completely disgusting without his morning shower - and headed out of the room to follow the sound of Hannibal moving about in the kitchen. 

When he found him, Hannibal was very neatly placing what appeared to be some kind of white-flecked omelet onto a plate, humming some unidentified tune to himself that Will got the impression was more likely to be a classical piece than a top 40 hit.

“Good morning,” Will said, watching Hannibal look up and smile at him. “Is there another of those?”

“This is actually for you,” Hannibal said. “I tend to be a very early riser, so I had already eaten. I thought it best to let you sleep; you so rarely get the chance, from what you've told me.”

Will looked along the bar again, finally taking in the full picture. The plate was sat next to a lightly steaming mug that Will prayed held coffee, and both dishes were seated on a small tray.

“You were going to wake me up with breakfast,” he realized. “That’s...why?”

Hannibal gave him a look, and Will recognized the measured stare for the silent comment it made:  _ I will answer you once you tell me why you felt the need to ask.  _

Hannibal mostly avoided becoming Will’s psychiatrist by giving him that look until Will psychoanalyzed himself instead. 

“I'm gonna start feeling like a well-treated one night stand,” Will said, hating that his tone missed joking by a mile, coming out more raspy and genuinely panicked. “I’m half expecting a ‘Here’s breakfast, see you never’ speech.”

“Do not be so rude to yourself,” Hannibal said. “You are welcome back whenever you like.” 

Will wondered, for a brief moment, if he was not still asleep, just having a very weird dream where his nightmares usually were. 

Hannibal waved him forward, nudging the tray across the counter to place it in front of one of the barstools. “Cooking is not a burden or a platitude to me. I enjoy it. You being here is an excuse to prepare two breakfasts instead of one, and I could not resist.” Picking up his own mug and starting to make his own coffee, he added, “I also believed it would be beneficial to you to have as much rest as possible and a healthy meal to begin your day, rather than let you go about whatever your usual routine was. You tend to be unresponsive to my methods when you know what I am doing, though, so I did not plan on mentioning it until it was already too late.”

Will, mouth stuffed full of omelet, frowned. He'd been played. Judging by the sly smile pulling at the corner of Hannibal’s mouth, the man knew it, too. 

Hannibal nudged the cup of coffee on the tray closer to him, as though as an apology, and Will accepted it to wash down the eggs. It was already slightly light, so it had clearly been fixed, so Will took a hesitant sip - only to pause.

“You...know my coffee order,” Will observed. His mind supplied him with memories of Hannibal’s unusual fixation on scents, and he hummed, connecting the dots. “Of course. You can probably smell how charred the grains are in the FBI lounge coffee.” 

“A terrible burden indeed,” Hannibal said. “I find Miss Katz makes a particularly harsh pot of coffee, which I find slightly….”

“Gross?”

“Nauseating,” Hannibal countered. “If only by strength of smell.”

“Why are you like that, anyway?” Will asked, curious. “It seems a bit much to just be genetic coincidence.” 

Hannibal gave him a small, thin-lipped smile that looked almost troubled. “Low dopamine levels in the brain can cause senses to become oversensitive. My sense of smell was the target my body chose.” 

_ Low dopamine _ could mean anything, from physical health issues to mental ones, but the way Hannibal had avoided even suggesting a cause led Will to believe it was the latter that plagued him. Interesting, then, that the man would choose to share this with Will.

_ He is guiding your empathy,  _ something whispered to him.  _ Why would he chose therapy? He understands the mind on a deeper level. How did he get that knowledge? Why did he study psychology? Something is not right with him, and he fixes what he sees of himself in reflections of others.  _

There was something to that, hanging just out of Will’s grasp. A conclusion that would make the whole mystery of Hannibal Lecter just ever so slightly clearer. It frustrated him, knowing he was so close to understanding and yet so hopelessly far from it. 

In his pocket, Will’s phone began ringing, the somewhat ironically chosen  _ People Are Strange  _ pouring through grainy speakers to fill Hannibal’s kitchen. 

Muttering a quick apology, Will dug it out, frowning at Alana’s name on his screen.

He answered it cautiously, opening with a tentative, “Hello?”

“Will,” Alana greeted him. “I dropped by your house, but you weren’t there.”

“Why did you go to my house?” Will asked. Then, realizing she’d implied a question, he added, “I stayed out last night.”

There was a moment of silence on the line. 

“...Are you at Hannibal’s?”

Will wondered what it was about Alana’s question - the mild tone, the implications behind it, the assumptions that led to it - that made him feel immediately cornered. “Yeah.”

“I was just making sure you were okay,” Alana said. “You worried me, yesterday.”

“I’m fine,” Will said. “Don’t worry about it. What did you need?”

“Jack gave me some files to pass on,” she told him. “A missing person's case, in case you needed something to do.”

Will chewed his lip for a moment, before making up his mind, locking eyes with Hannibal and moving the phone away from his ear to click it onto speaker.

“A missing person case?” he prompted.

“So he says,” Alana said. “I didn’t actually look at it - I’m not being consulted, so I’m not supposed to know what I’m holding onto. I just know that you weren’t very happy about being shut out of casework, so I thought I’d bring it to you as soon as possible.”

“It’s not the lack of work that’s upsetting,” Will said. 

“Isn’t it?”

Will looked up to Hannibal, who had a pensive look on his face that told Will he wasn’t alone in thinking Alana had some theory on his behavior behind that question. Will disliked the idea of being psychoanalyzed from two directions at once - especially since he only walked into one of those willingly. 

“Well,” Alana chirped, apparently taking Will’s silence as a cue to change topic. “I’ll bring them by your classroom later today. How’s Hannibal?”

Will gestured between Hannibal and his phone, giving the man silent permission to reveal himself.

“I am doing well, Alana,” he said, a self-satisfied smile crossing his face at her tiny grunt of surprise. 

“I didn’t know I was on speaker,” she said. “Or am I?” 

“You are,” Will confirmed. “You were offering me a job. In work-related things, Hannibal is my impulse control.” 

“A heavy burden,” Alana murmured. 

“No burden at all,” Hannibal corrected. “I am happy to give a second opinion on his choices. Especially now, when the involvement I have is slightly more personal.”

“Only slightly?”

Hannibal turned away from Will, so his face was hidden, but he still sounded amused when he spoke. “Remember, Alana, I was never Will’s psychiatrist. Only his friend.”

“Technicalities can only get you so far, Hannibal,” Alana said, and Will forced himself not to tense at the slight warning in her tone. 

“I’ll see you at work, Alana,” Will said, reaching out to hang up without waiting for a response.

“Such an abrupt end to a call is rather rude,” Hannibal said. “She may have had more to say.”

“I didn’t have more to hear,” Will countered. “She was getting herself ready to tell us that we’re making a mistake, and I really don’t want to hear it.”

“Consider the situation from her point of view.” Hannibal leaned back across his counter to speak to Will face-to-face. “I am a psychiatrist who was originally called in to see you as a patient. I am only not your therapist because you refused to have one. Most of your colleagues consider you to be in my care anyway. As such, this appears as a very damning breach of ethics.”

“But I'm  _ not  _ your patient,” Will said. “And I don't get how it's easier for her to act like you're taking advantage of your clients than see this as me making my own choices.”

Hannibal’s lips twitched ever so slightly toward an amused smile. “You are getting very irate. I feel I should remind you that getting people to examine your ability to make and stick to significant choices was the initial point of this exercise.”

Will shot him a look that told him exactly what he thought of  _ that.  _

Hannibal huffed out a laugh. “Alright, then. A change of subject. How familiar are you with performing arts?”

“I'm acting pretty much constantly,” Will replied, tone dry. “Other than that, not very. Why?”

“I tend to defer to fine art related outings for socialization,” Hannibal said. “I was wondering how difficult it would be to convince you to join me.”

Will’s mouth went dry. “Like a date?”

“That is how most will perceive it, yes.”

Will shifted in his seat. “I'm not exactly the usual type of patron.”

“Do not worry,” Hannibal assured him. “There is a very small community for sophisticated arts in this area. A few of the wealthy and educated use it as a show of status, but most events are open to the public and organized at least in part for charity. As important as the more pompous guests will act like they are, you are no less welcome than any of them.” He gave a slightly wicked smile. “And, of course, I have a reputation as an excellent and discerning judge of character. It would be hard for someone to judge you harshly when I am so clearly fond of you.”

Will choked, struggling not to flush at the casual statement - it would have been a bit much to be said by a friend on it's own, but with the ‘relationship’ between them, Will wasn't really sure how much he could consider to be weird. 

It helped, of course, that Hannibal always seemed a step shy of socially inept. He played his cards well and was always charming, but it came with the artificial feel of something rehearsed. His manners were not natural, but deliberate - and whenever they faltered, whenever the clock face opened enough to show the gears turning inside, Hannibal was just as lost as Will. 

In fact, they were almost complimentary, upon consideration. Will struggled with small talk and social cues that other people practiced from birth with ease, but he was always earnest and open and he flourished when he was free to choose what to do. Hannibal, on the other hand, had been following a script so long he no longer knew how to form his own words. 

When social graces and polite company were nowhere to be found, Will Graham thrived. Where chaos was kept pinned like the butterfly’s wing, Hannibal thrived. 

In the world of the FBI, where chaos and social order joined hands, they both fumbled their way through something greater than themselves. That was where they came together, complimented each other. One could support where the other was weak. Hannibal was the mouth that spoke quiet truths and Will was the hand that held steady, and between them they might have one whole human being.

“You have gone somewhere again,” Hannibal’s quiet murmur reached him. “Something tells me you are hearing more than I am saying, these days.”

“You’re leading me into it,” Will accused. “You throw out the lines you know I’ll latch onto. You want me curious. No one’s been curious about you in a long time.”

Hannibal took a sip of his coffee, eyes shining with the light of a man enamored. “Very true.” 

Will shifted, empathy failing when he tried to place what made Hannibal look so infinitely pleased. He wanted to dismiss it as Hannibal being happy to have someone playing along with his game, but there was...something  _ deeper.  _ Hannibal was being deliberate. 

He wanted Will to look, but unlike everyone else, he wanted Will to  _ see.  _

_ See? _

Hobbs’ voice snapped him out of introspection, fleeing his own mind. 

“I need to get ready for work,” Will said, and tried not to seem like he was running away as he left Hannibal’s kitchen.

Whatever Hannibal wanted him to find, empathizing with him, Will would rather wait until he was prepared to handle it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chap is kind of short but the next one should be the last bit of adapted info before Original Content so hold tight friendos

“The Harrisons were killed in their family home on Christmas day,” Will told his class, using his remote to flip through the relevant presentation slides. He reached the two overarching photos of the whole scene: a family photo from the morning before the murder, and a photo of the crime scene immediately  _ after,  _ taken by the killer and left as bait. 

“Two photos, taken maybe an hour apart. Our killer took the second one himself. He left it at the crime scene with his fingerprints on the camera. He called himself in, and he didn’t resist arrest. When they asked him why, he laughed.”

He let that sink in for a moment, watching his students process it.

“Some people don’t want anything from you,” he said. “Sometimes, killers just want to see what will happen. You, and anyone else in their path, become a lab rat in their maze. This killer did what plenty have and plenty  _ will:  _ he tested the FBI. He wanted to see how good we are.” Will flicked between the photos once more, letting the students take one last good look. “And he left us these. This is his experiment. The crime was just...the control.” 

He turned to face his class. “Anyone see what he wanted us to find?”

The class was entirely still, trepidation in almost every face.

Will sighed. “One trick question doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ever trust me to ask real ones. Pathological liars can tell the truth as much as they want the second you stop listening.  _ Always  _ listen, but never fully trust.” He waved toward the photo again. “What do you see?”

_ See? _

The shadow of Hobbs sauntered ever closer, but Will tuned it out. He didn’t have time for that. 

A few hands raised, tentative in their climb as their owners doubted themselves. One hand stretched high, fingers spreading slightly with the force of the gesture.

She was  _ certain.  _

Hopefully,  _ certain  _ was  _ right,  _ for once.

He called on her.

“The door is locked,” she said. “The killer locked them in.”

Will hummed. “Even better,” he said, flicking back to the first photo. “The first one had it unlocked. It’s a family on Christmas. They don’t have anything to worry about. They’re waiting on the rest of the family, maybe, or just coming and going from the house. Maybe they just don’t care. It’s a nice neighborhood. But the second photo? He locked it deliberately, just for that picture. Why?”

Blank stares. That was fair - it was a bit of a jump for even Will’s empathy. 

“To make you  _ notice,”  _ he said. “People are really good at ignoring a problem as long as it stays the same. Once something changes, then we start to see.”

_ See? _

A feathered stag’s shadowed form passed through his doorway, heading toward something unseen further down the hall.

Will swallowed, and pressed on with his lecture. 

“The door was unlocked in the first photo because they were waiting on someone,” Will said. “And the person they were waiting on was the one who killed them. He was the one who took this picture. When the police found him and asked why, he laughed, and he asked  _ why not?” _

He watched a few faces twitch toward disgust.

Good. Some of them were grounded. It was hard to stay human, sometimes. 

“This is an old case,” he said. “But it teaches two valuable lessons: one, you should always be ready for trust to be broken. Two - the greatest thing you can do for yourself in any investigation is to learn the difference between someone showing you more than they meant to, or exactly what they wanted you to see. Sometimes mistakes are made to manipulate. Look through them.”

_ See? _

“ _ See _ .”

  
  
  


Hannibal’s appearance at lunch was a surprise, but a welcome one, and Will nearly fell out with relief when he realized he would have a chance to decompress between lessons. His choice to return to old casework for course material had been rough: several students had commented on the change from his usual ‘current event’ style teaching, and he’d had to find increasingly creative ways to dodge the question of  _ why.  _

He didn’t want to explain that he’d been removed from consulting. His students already had plenty of reason to think he was crazy just from watching him teach. Hell,  _ he  _ thought he was crazy half the time, and he never had to listen to himself. 

“How are you doing?” Hannibal asked, entering Will’s classroom with his little container set held in neatly folded hands, recalling to Will’s mind images of his father’s daily packed lunches. 

Somehow, Will doubted Hannibal would approve of the comparison of his five-star culinary expertise being weighed against a poor man’s paper bag of sandwiches to be split between a hungry child and a bone-tired shipyard worker on a dock somewhere in the Gulf Coast. Not that he’d be  _ offended,  _ but he’d likely draw uncomfortable conclusions from the connection, and Will had enough psychoanalysis going on for him at the moment. 

“Pretty good, actually,” Will said. “I forgot what it was like to not be sweating.”

Hannibal set his containers down on Will’s desk, turning a small smile to him. “You feel well today, then?”

“I guess a night of sleep was a good change.”

Hannibal turned back to the dishes, taking them apart to hand one to Will, all the while mentally noting the success of the anti-inflammatories. It had been a gamble, mixing them in with eggs, but the exposure to heat didn’t seem to dampen the medication too much for them to work. 

Good, then, because that meant that day’s meal was good for a follow-up dose.

He opened the two travel bowls and unsnapped spoons from the clip at the top of the bag, serving Will his half of the lunch. “Lentil vegetable soup,” Hannibal declared. “Very good for the immune system. Good for the theme of recovery.” 

“I’m not  _ recovering,”  _ Will muttered, almost petulant, as he took his first bite.

“Aren’t you?” Hannibal asked, a strange note to his voice Will didn’t bother trying to place. “You maintain that your issues are temporary responses, either to stress or illness. Giving yourself time to heal your body from the cause long enough to end the symptoms is recovery, even if you do not like to consider yourself originally unhealthy.” 

Will went to respond, only to watch Hannibal’s shoulders square slightly, his head tipping to the side in a way that reminded Will of one of his dogs.

_ Also  _ much like a dog was the way Hannibal leaned forward slightly, and  _ inhaled,  _ a gesture that might have been subtle if he had not telegraphed his decision to do so so obviously. 

“Um…?”

Hannibal’s eyes darted up to meet his, and Will let them hold for a fraction of a second before darting his own gaze back to rest on Hannibal’s nose instead. “You did not bring that aftershave with you, last night, did you? It’s faded. Feel free to replace it with anything of mine. I shall consider it a blessing.”

Will snorted, leaning back slightly as he tried to escape the increasingly uncomfortable closeness. “I’m sure psychology has a lot to say about you wanting me to smell like you,  _ Dr.  _ Lecter.”

“It’s a popular topic of study,” Hannibal allowed. Then, quietly, he asked, “Perhaps we should ask Dr. Bloom?”

Will frowned at the sudden mention of Alana, just in time to hear the woman herself clear her throat from the doorway of his classroom.

_ Oh.  _ So that was Hannibal’s game, then: with the small space between them and the slight lean in of Hannibal’s stance, they looked to be having a rather intimate exchange from an outsider’s point of view. 

Will felt sort of coldly unsatisfied by the information, it ringing with a note of ‘oh,  _ obviously’  _ that was ever so slightly...disappointing. 

Weird.

“Hannibal,” Alana greeted, when the man in question stepped back to turn to her. “Will. I’m not interrupting something..?”

“No, no,” Hannibal assured her, and Will watched his smile grow to the stiff false one he wore so often. It seemed a bit more plastic than usual, and he wondered if that was for Alana’s sake, making it seem like she  _ had,  _ in fact, intruded. “I was just delivering Will’s lunch.”

“Again?” Alana asked, voice deceptively mild. 

Will watched her and Hannibal lock eye contact, and could practically  _ feel  _ the territory dispute happening between them.

Alana considered Hannibal’s actions unprofessional, and more than that,  _ dangerous _ . She saw him abandoning a clear reputation as the picture of social grace to experiment on a whim, and she was waiting for them to crash and burn. 

She had plenty of faith in Hannibal, though, she’d made that clear many times. Which meant the doubt and concern was entirely dependant on who was on the other side.

Alana didn’t seem him jumping overboard - she saw Will dragging him over the edge. 

Alana’s gaze said  _ don’t let this destroy you,  _ and Hannibal’s…

Hannibal’s said neither  _ this is my choice  _ or  _ you are wrong.  _ It said nothing politely defensive or kind.

His eyes screamed a challenge.  _ Let him drag me in,  _ it said.  _ I can swim just fine. _

“I rarely have cause to take my lunch,” Hannibal told her. “Bringing food to Will is an excuse to escape the office that I cannot resist.”

Will remembered Hannibal’s comment about taking his visit as an excuse to cook breakfast - and how quickly he’d admitted that was not the  _ actual  _ motive at all. He wondered, distantly, what the lunches were for, only to realize that he was being stupid. They were faking a relationship. Of course Hannibal would be taking time to visit him regularly. 

Then again, two lunch dates and a night over seemed a bit intense for a new relationship.

On the other hand,  _ Hannibal  _ was generally intense, always going above and beyond for the sheer dramatics of it all. 

“I see,” Alana said. “Well, don’t let me stop you. I’m just here to hand this over.” She held up a file folder, and Will abruptly remembered their phone call about the missing person’s case. 

Looking to Hannibal again, apparently unable to resist the staring contest, Alana said, “You still have case clearance, so if see any of it, it’s fine.” 

“Ah, good,” Hannibal said. “In that case, I would be happy to be a sounding board for you, in this.”

Will nodded absently, already half tuning them out as he opened the folder, latching onto the faintest scrap of trust Jack was willing to turn his way. 

“And that’s my cue to leave,” he heard Alana say. “Be careful, Hannibal. Don’t let Will get into any trouble.”

Will raised his eyes from the first page of files to stare after Alana’s retreating form, bewildered. 

Looking to Hannibal revealed the man looking unspeakably amused, though holding it behind the tensest of smiles. 

“What?” Will asked.

“She did not believe you,” Hannibal said. “You painted the picture of you proposing a relationship, and me accepting, and she did not believe it.”

“She thought I was lying?”

“She thought you were mistaken,” he corrected. “But now she sees you were entirely right, and she is unsure how to proceed.”

Will wondered what it meant that the only person he had to even closely approximate a friendship with hadn’t considered him entering a mutually beneficial romantic relationship with someone to be even feasible. 

Probably nothing he hadn’t already thought himself, honestly. 

He took another careful bite of his stew, trying to finish it before it could cool further, and tried to ignore the ever-growing part of himself that resented Alana for her doubts. 

Hannibal watched Will unknowingly begin to cure himself of the damage he’d been living with so long, falling into Hannibal’s careful planning with ease, letting Hannibal paint the world around him in whatever light he chose. 

He was playing the long game, but every time Will looked a little too close or saw a little too much, he became that much more thrilled with his own plans. 

Will Graham was uniquely beautiful of mind, and whatever path he took through his recovery would birth a creature beyond his greatest predictions. 

He could tend the seeds he’d planted deep in that psyche, but what grew was entirely dependent on Will.

If it destroyed him, so be it.

For once, Hannibal felt the control slipping from his fingers, and relinquished it willingly.

_ Just this once,  _ he thought.  _ Let him build himself from the rubble you reduced him to.  _

Whatever he built would be a wonder to see, even if it was the last thing he ever did. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the subtitle of this fic is "hannibal is a little shit: a dissertation"


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will looks over the case files he was given, and makes several conclusions, only some of which are actually relevant to the missing persons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i originally was gonna have the opera date start in this chapter but then will started thinking and it got pushed into next chapter so heres a 2300 word dump of will's gay crisis

“‘Upper middle class’,” Will read out from a file in front of him - one of the many they'd gone through that evening. “That seems to be the link, so far. They all have higher class jobs.”

“There are many reasons one could find that objectionable,” Hannibal mused. “A poor man with a resentful heart, perhaps?”

“No,” Will murmured, flipping back through pages upon pages of missing persons reports. “Vengeance against the rich would start at the top and work it's way down. This is someone at the top - someone who thinks every face in this pile is beneath them.” Will frowned. “...Jack will want this back. These people were probably killed.” 

“Surrendering the case files willingly will serve as a point in your favor,” Hannibal pointed out. “It shows you have accepted the boundaries he’s place and are willing to cooperate with them. Self-awareness is a trait rarely attributed to the mentally unwell.”

“Is that you telling me I should call Jack?”

Hannibal smiled, small and amused, the way he did when Will said something that aligned with his strangely morbid humor. Him finding Will picking through his words to find the message within to be funny was not anything new, but it always took Will a little by surprise.

For a man who hid himself so well, Hannibal always seemed eager to be seen. 

“What you choose to do is up to you,” Hannibal said. “I would advise not to proceed with the file, though. He will not let you solve it, and getting too involved will make it harder to ignore later.”

Will leaned back with a heavy sigh. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m gonna call him, I guess.”

Hannibal leaned over the table, closing the file in front of Will and sliding it to the side. “In that case, I’ll leave you to it, and prepare dinner.”

Will watched the psychiatrist leave the room, and sat idle for a few moments before finally giving in and pulling out his phone. 

Jack’s number was one of those things he usually wished he didn’t have. Every time it lit up on his phone, a very small part of him was tempted to block it. The man was never pleasant to speak to in a phone call, always gruff and on the edge of angry. Talking to him in person was easier, because Will was so visibly uncomfortable with conversations that Jack usually at least attempted to speak evenly, but phone calls left him subject to the full force of the man’s abrasive personality. 

It didn’t help that Will was not very good at speaking on the phone at all. Empathy was easier when he was  _ looking  _ at someone, even if he never met their eyes and rarely raised his own eyes above their chin. Body language told him much more than tone of voice ever did, and mode subtextual information was lost in the static of a phone receiver. 

All in all, calling Jack on the phone to turn down an invitation to work because of the type of crime wasn’t something he really wanted to do. 

He had no choice, though. Hannibal was right: him willingly participating in his own probation would go far in his favor, and he wasn’t really sure he wanted to deal with the case in front of him anyway. His empathy had gotten to a point more recently where he’d taken to absorbing traits of minds he spent too long picking apart, and the last thing he needed was taking on a classist mindset when squatting in the home of someone miles ahead of his social status. 

There was no choice here. He had to call. 

Jack picked up on the third ring, and didn’t even bother with a hello. “I was just thinking I should call you,” he said. “The case-...”

“Is a serial killer,” Will filled in. “You don’t want me on it. I’m grounded.”

“Worse,” Jack replied. “It’s the Ripper. I just got called back in for the night, I’m headed to the scene now. Give the file back to Alana in the morning, I guess. I’m glad you didn’t try and push ahead with it anyway - this really is in your best interest.” 

Will’s eyes slid to the doorway, where just beyond Hannibal was working on a meal for the two of them to share. The man was a psychiatrist whose opinion was trusted above all others, and he didn’t think the grounding was completely necessary - what did that mean? Did it mean everyone else was just to the point they wouldn’t believe anything other than what they’d thought up on their own?

It lent support to Hannibal’s thesis on psychological manipulation in regards to lying, but it also felt...not necessarily  _ wrong,  _ but  _ lacking.  _ Something slightly adjacent to the truth. 

“I’m guessing I’m blacklisted for updates,” Will said. “I’ll have to keep an eye on TattleCrime, like the rest of the depraved masses.”

“Please don’t give that site any more traffic than it already has,” Jack sighed. “It’s sick, what Lounds does. Posting pictures of crime scenes online like that for people to gawk at it just...disgusting.”

Will had seen the FBI do some pretty disturbing, disgusting, morally ambiguous things in the pursuit of solving crimes, and so that statement rang to him as a man in a glass house seeking stones to throw. He left that unsaid, though. Instead, he said, “It’s either her website, or hope you call Hannibal in as a consultant.”

“About that,” Jack started. “Are you sure-...?”

“No,” Will interrupted, and then hung up, not giving the man any time to continue that line of questioning. 

He didn’t want to talk about their big ruse when he was still feeling stifled and irritated about his being benched on cases. He’d probably say something stupid, just to be petty, and make the situation even worse for himself. 

As it was, he’d probably annoyed Jack, but that was better than making his own life any harder. 

He stood up from the table, and headed out to seek out his laptop - he’d likely have a while before Hannibal was done, and staking out TattleCrime hadn’t actually been a joke. 

As annoying as Freddie Lounds was, she had her uses, he supposed. 

  
  
  


When the thirteenth or so refresh of the Lounds’ blog finally loaded a new article, Will was instantly entranced in the picture that came up.

The body was staged at a beach, on a pile of rocks that allowed it to sit up as though it were on a chair. The body was a woman, one of those Will had read up on earlier, but she was less relevant than her decoration.

Her wrists were crossed in her lap, acting like a censor to her nudity. Her chest, however, stood open, and her collarbone had been cut into and laced with greenery. 

Elderberries, in the center, Freddie had identified them. Stemming from the heart, the berries slowly blended out into Tsubaki flowers, the soft red blooms making a harsh contrast to both the dark berries and the pale skin that surrounded them. 

In the victim’s folded hands, there was a bouquet of Queen Anne’s Lace.

Another refresh brought the first round of comments on the article, and Will scrubbed through them for information. 

Nothing, and so he refreshed again, and again, up until something new finally caught his attention. 

A discussion on flower language as a possible interpretation had struck in the comments, and the revelations there were...interesting. Queen Anne’s Lace was apparently a flower to represent  _ sanctuary _ , and Tsubaki flowers were something like  _ perfect love  _ but could also mean  _ discretion.  _

No one could parse out why the Elderberries were there, and what they represented, but Will’s mind was already starting to pick apart the picture in front of him. 

Empathy with the Ripper was never something that went well for him, but…

Well, it wasn’t like he had anything else to do, was it?

A deep breath in, and he closed his eyes, letting the pendulum swing.

  
  
  
  


_ Soft lines, thin incisions, delicate posing. She is not to look harsh in any way. She’s only a courier, bearing my message.  _

_ The dark berries start at the heart, showing the evil within, but they are not all there is. Gentle, colorful blooms, slowly being consumed by something growing within.  _

_ These are for you. Something within you is growing, attempting to swallow all the gentleness left in you… _

_...But you will not be alone. _

_ Flowers placed in delicately folded hands, a symbol of my support to you. If the dark spreads farther, if it consumes you, seek me. I will protect you. You will be at my side at the end of things. _

_ This is not my design - this is yours. I am merely the artist you’ve commissioned. Direct me as you wish. _

  
  
  
  


The Ripper had a  _ partner.  _

Will took a deep breath, when that realization clicked, and he opened his eyes to see Hannibal hovering in the doorway, watching him with veiled interest. 

“The Chesapeake Ripper is the killer,” Will told the doctor. “Jack told me on the phone. I just found pictures of the scene on Lounds’ blog, and it’s…” 

Hannibal hummed, crossing the room to peer down at the photo. “You looked beyond what the image shows the rest of us. Tell me, Will, what did you see?”

“Someone found him,” Will said, softly, slowly trying to slide all the pieces into place. “Someone saw too much. He’s...distancing himself. The ball isn’t in his field anymore, and he’s showing that he’s okay with it.” He narrowed his eyes. “The next body that turns up is going to be the second killer’s reply, I think. If it goes the way the Ripper planned, at least.”

“An interesting concept,” Hannibal mused. “A killer inviting his own downfall, to groom a successor.” 

“Not a successor,” Will corrected, brows furrowing as he simultaneously stumbled into both more answers and infinitely more questions. “A partner.”

“You think he wishes to work together with someone?” Hannibal asked, sounding slightly surprised. “A dramatic change, from previous assessments. You’ve called him solitary, in the past. Claimed he finds other people distasteful. And now he is inviting one to stand at his side?”

“I don’t understand it either,” Will said. “I’m missing something, and it’s frustrating. I determine based on evidence, and I have nothing but a picture to go off of.” He leaned back in his chair, tensing when doing so pushed his head back against the chest of the man standing behind him. 

He immediately started to shift to move away, an apology trapped on his tongue, but Hannibal just sat a hand on his shoulder and leaned forward a bit more for a closer look. 

Having the man leaning over him, looking at his laptop over the top of his head, was oddly calming. He supposed it had a similar effect to him being buried under a pile of dogs - the presence of another bearing down on him in a way that was not antagonistic or overstimulating, allowing him to sate the part of him that was starved for company without having to worry so much about ruining it.

Hannibal, like his dogs, had a way of doing what they wished in a way that was both considerate of his feelings and unconcerned with his contributions. It was...nice.

“I suppose we will have to wait and see what comes of this, like normal citizens,” Hannibal said. “In the meantime, dinner is prepare, if you are ready to eat.”

Will closed out of Lounds’ site and shut down his laptop, jumping on the opportunity to stop thinking in circles. “Please. Your cooking is a good way to stop thinking about dead people for a little while.”

Hannibal actually  _ laughed  _ at that, just the slightest breathy sound, and Will nearly tripped over himself trying to follow the man out of the room.

It hadn’t even been a particularly funny comment, but Hannibal had sounded genuinely amused, and Will found himself reacting like a dog who’d been fed table scraps. The tiniest taste of something better than he had, and instantly he wanted nothing more. 

If this insane plan did nothing for Will, it would at least help him finally see what Hannibal was underneath his layers of pretenses and false manners.

_ See?  _

For once, the voice wasn’t that of a dead killer, haunting him at every turn. It was the gentle, accented speech of the very man he was following into the dining room, who had been crazy enough to not only agree with but  _ suggest  _ that Will stage a large scale con against the FBI to earn his job back. 

The voice wasn’t asking him if he saw the beauty of death. It was asking if he saw the beauty of a secret…

...And he may not, yet, not fully, but he would not shy away.

Hobbs had asked him to look where he did not want to. The phantom voice of Hannibal called him to look where his eyes were drawn already. 

Curious, how quickly Will was fixating on Hannibal. Perhaps being unable to work cases made him desperate for a focus. Maybe his sudden reliance on the man was making him overanalyze their relationship. 

Maybe he was just taking their false title a little too seriously.

That, he thought, was something he’d need to sort out quickly. That was far more trouble than he needed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i got news for ya william you are only gonna get gayer


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introducing, Abigail.

There was a hand in his hair, petting through the curls with a gentle touch bordering on reverent. 

The hand moved away, and a moment later the pad of its thumb brushed across his lower lip.

In the foggy mess of his thoughts, Will found an impulse, and managed to control his face just enough to press a kiss to the thumb. 

Warm, soft laughter was his reward. “You continue to surprise me,” a rumbling, accented voice told him. “You are so conservative with physical contact, and yet your reaction to a lack of anxiety is to become affectionate. You’re truly a wonder.”

Will’s eyes were far too heavy for him to peel them open, but he knew that voice, he thought. “Hannibal?” he tried to call, but it came out more of a slur and a hum than anything discernable. 

“Hush,” Hannibal told him, voice gentle but not quite sweet - he was not being cruel, but there was no room for Will to argue, here. “Go back to sleep, Will.”

Will wanted to stay awake, to chase after an explanation of what was happening, but the world felt like it was swimming and he could barely form a single thought.

_ In the morning,  _ he thought.  _ I’ll ask...in the morning. _

  
  
  
  


Hannibal watched as Will’s breathing evened back out, and made a mental note to increase the initial dose of sedative the next night. As it was, he hoped the drug would take away the man’s ability to recall his brief brush with awareness, and started working on the IV. 

Hannibal didn’t have time to properly cycle Will through treatment with pills alone, especially considering the amount of risk he ran each time he hid them in food of deactivating the ingredients that made them useful. This compromise, a nightly IV, would hopefully keep things moving more smoothly.

If Will remembered anything from these moments, he’d likely brush it off as a dream - which, really, suited Hannibal’s plans just as well as the man never noticing anything at all. 

It was really a good thing that the doctor from his last physical had been so exceptionally rude, because killing him had lead Hannibal to be able to lift quite a few medical supplies for his personal use. 

He really needed to get Will to the next opera, though - it was about time for him to invite some people by for a feast. 

  
  
  
  


Waking in Hannibal’s guest room was no less disorienting the second time.

It was  _ more  _ so, actually, because Will couldn’t remember what he’d dreamed, but he woke feeling...odd. 

There was energy buzzing under his skin and a feeling in his chest he couldn’t name, and the first thing he did upon sitting up was bring a hand to his mouth to rub at his lips.

He felt almost  _ giddy,  _ which was such an alien feeling. He wondered what he’d dreamed that managed to rekindle an honest joy he hadn’t felt in…

...Well. Probably  _ years.  _

More than the weird elation, Will was also dry yet again, and he stumbled to the bathroom and showered in a daze.

Hannibal’s house couldn’t have been so cathartic for him, could it? Will felt almost guilty, for being so at peace when his dogs were being forced to put up with only a stranger’s occasional attention, but…

Will was standing in a shower with hot water that didn’t feel like it was boiling him from the inside. The steam filling up the bathroom wasn’t suffocating him. The lines of the tile weren’t bleeding together, he wasn’t dizzy, he didn’t feel lightheaded.

Something, something  _ big,  _ had changed. 

The crook of Will’s elbow itched, and he adjusted the temperature a bit, figuring his skin was probably drying out. Which then had him thinking of his skin, which made him think of soap, which made him realize he was about to use Hannibal’s bath products. 

There were only small bottles of products in the shower of this bathroom, likely intentionally set aside for guests, and Will had to reign in his mind lest it chase after the idea of what Hannibal’s  _ actual  _ shower looked like and contained. That was a bit more invasive empathy than he was comfortable with, especially when naked in someone else’s house.

Trying to shut out his brain, Will picked up the first of the products, and set to showering - ignoring the entire time the part of him that kept trying to draw lines between Will’s use of Hannibal-scented items and Hannibal’s intense fixation on scents.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Hannibal had breakfast ready by the time Will was dressed for the day, and they ate in companionable silence before Will headed off to work. 

In the doorway, as Will confirmed that Hannibal was welcome to visit him at lunch again today, the teacher was struck with the intrusive thought that they were operating like a married couple who’d lived together for years, rather than two men cohabitating to cope with an unfortunate circumstance. 

He also tried to taper down on his empathy, because Hannibal was drawing in a lot deeper breaths through his nose than usual and that connection on scents had never truly been squashed.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Will managed to make it to lunch without any incidents, and was rewarded with the pleasure of watching Hannibal and Alana both try and approach him at the same time, only to pause in his doorway and trade awkward greetings.

Well, Alana offered an awkward greeting. Hannibal offered a greeting that was just a hair too warm to  _ not  _ be intended as condescending. 

Honestly, Hannibal’s increasingly petulant protectiveness was a sight to behold. Will wasn’t sure if he appreciated it or wanted it to stop immediately. 

Probably both.

Alana looked ready to begin one of the therapists’ passive-aggressive arguments, so Will cut in. “Hey, guys. Alana, here’s that file back.” 

She accepted it from him with a grateful nod. “Thank you. I also wanted to warn you,” she said, looking between him and Hannibal. Will expected a comment about their ‘relationship,’ but instead, was surprised with something much worse. “I think Jack’s still trying to pin Nicholas Boyle’s death on Abigail. He doesn’t seem to be putting any effort into looking for a different killer.”

Standing by the statue of a stag, dark shadows all around.  _ We are her fathers, now.  _

Will shook off the memory. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “Not that he’s really listening to me, right now.”

“I doubt it would help,” Alana said. “Like you said, he’s not listening to anyone.”

That...wasn’t what Will had meant, exactly, but he appreciated the effort to make it less personal.

Hannibal, luckily, stepped in with a solution. “Perhaps we should visit Abigail,” he said. “If we cannot convince Jack she is innocent, we can at least prepare her for the scrutiny.”

Will hadn’t seen Abigail since he’d found out the truth. Part of him was terrified - not of her, but of himself. He didn’t trust himself not to get lost in his empathy, when face to face with her. 

Not to mention, the easiest part of dealing with Hannibal’s confession to being an accessory to murder was  _ stubbornly ignoring it.  _ Even the reminder had his heart pumping, mind racing.

The whispers of doubts returned to him, begging him to look a little closer at who Hannibal was under the masks he wore. Will held back, though - that was a door that couldn’t be closed again once he’d opened it, and he wasn’t ready to know what lie beyond it. 

“That’d be great,” Alana said. “She’s...more open, with you two. I think your visits help ground her. I’m not certain it’s the healthiest connection she could make, but it’s something.” She grimaced. “And...try and talk to her about the book thing, again?”

Will snorted. “She’s not going to listen to us now, either,” he said. “Her mind was made up before we ever said a word. This is her regaining control. I’m not taking that from her.”

Alana sighed. “I guess that’s fair. I’m going to head out, now - I’ll see you guys later?”

They agreed and watched her leave, and Will met Hannibal’s eyes as the doctor turned to him. 

“I’ll call the hospital after I leave,” he said. “And arrange for Abigail to spend the evening with us. My home should be a considerably more comfortable place to speak.”

Especially since they were all three hiding a murder from the FBI, but Will wasn’t exactly going to say that in the middle of a government building. 

“Okay,” Will agreed. “Dinner with Abigail. Got it.” Hopefully the anxiety wouldn’t consume him when he was trying to teach.

Hannibal’s gentle smile told him  _ I understand,  _ and that took the tiniest bit of tension out of Will’s spine. 

Of course, that was a temporary relief, because Will dared to catch Hannibal’s eye and saw the dark, self-satisfied light within.

_ See? _

He wished he didn’t.

  
  
  
  
  


“So Will’s coming by, too?” Abigail asked, watching out the window for Hannibal’s house to appear among the row of unfamiliar fancy estates. “Dr. Bloom told me yesterday that he got taken off of active cases for a while.”

“Indeed he was,” Hannibal confirmed. “We are currently trying to get him back into a state where they are willing to return him to work. He’s been staying here for two nights now, recovering from the extended trauma.”

Abigail turned to him, frowning. “He’s staying at your place? He seems a little…”

“He despises extended stays in other people’s company,” Hannibal said, which had Abigail huffing out the softest hint of a laugh. “However, his stay at my house is both beneficial to his health and to our current plan.”

Abigail’s face when sharp and grim with sudden seriousness. “Plan? Is this about…?”

“Will is aware of the situation with Nicholas Boyle,” Hannibal informed her. “But no, this is not about that. We determined that I am the best gauge the FBI has as to Will’s mental stability, and that proving I had limitless faith in him would go far in his favor. As far as Will’s coworkers believe, the two of us are in a relationship, at the moment.”

Abigail blinked, slowly processing. “Okay, you-...What? You can’t go from ‘he knows you killed someone’ to ‘we’re  _ dating  _ now,’ Hannibal, that’s...what the  _ hell?” _

Hannibal’s lips twitched up in an amused smile. “Your secret is safe with Will. As I said, I have faith in him. He holds you very highly in regard, and would not risk you coming into harm.”

“He acts like he’s my dad, you mean,” Abigail said. “You both do.”

“Does that make you uncomfortable?”

Abigail was silent for a long moment. “...No. Not really. You two are kind of... parental. Maybe I’m just crazy, though. I mean, I’m letting myself be pseudo-adopted by the guys who killed my actual dad. That’s not normal, right?”

“Very few things about this are normal.”

Abigail sighed. “Yeah, that’s fair.” 

There was a long pause, and then Abigail started softly laughing.

Hannibal quirked an eyebrow at her. “Something amusing?”

“I have two dads,” she breathed out. “I have two gay dads.”

“Don’t be silly, Abigail,” Hannibal told her. “Will is at the very least bisexual.”

Abigail’s laughter came in full, and Hannibal felt internally pleased at the idea he’d made the grim and traumatized child so comfortable. Especially since it meant that her dip into the darkness of the world could be so easily patched over with the presence of a false family - that would make all of his plans run just a bit smoother. 

  
  
  
  


  
Will arrived to Hannibal’s house after work to be greeted at the door by a smiling Abigail. 

For a second, he was breathless, stricken by the fact that the girl looked genuinely  _ happy.  _ Her smile was light and absentminded, and the sounds he’d heard beyond the closed door suggested she had been laughing when she came to answer it. 

Looking over her shoulder, he saw Hannibal emerge from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a small towel and watching them both with a gentle smile. 

“Having a good time?” Will asked, weakly aiming for casual. 

“Hannibal told me about you guys’ con,” she said.

“Oh, good,” he breathed, and chose to shut and lock the door behind him so as to not have to look directly at anyone else.

“I think it’s pretty cool,” she offered. “It makes sense, too.”

At Will’s questioning look, Abigail smiled. 

“I was pretty sure you two were married anyway,” she told them. “I don’t think anyone will have trouble believing you.”

Will’s face felt warm. “Oh.”

Abigail laughed again, and headed back toward the dining room. “Dinner’s almost ready - right, Hannibal?”

“I’m ready to plate it now, I believe,” he confirmed. “The table is set. I’ll join you in a moment.”

Will followed after Abigail, and stopped as she did, in front of the table.

She turned to him, all the light humor from before gone, and a haunted look taking over her instead. “Hannibal said he told you.”

“He didn’t have to,” Will said. “I figured it out. He just confirmed it.”

She look terrified. “If you figured it out, could someone else?”

“Not now,” he said. “The last advice on that case I gave Jack was that whoever killed Nicholas’ sister also killed him.”

“You...lied?”

“I don’t know how much it will help,” Will said. “He’s not listening to me. Which I guess Hannibal already told you, since you knew about- oh.”

Abigail had him in a hug, gripping tightly to his shoulders. “Thank you,” she whispered, fierce and heartfelt. “I can’t believe you two would do this for me.”

Will was not great with physical comfort - or comfort in general - but he raised a hand, gently petting Abigail’s hair. “Hannibal was right, Jack won’t listen to reason if he thinks you’re guilty. There’s no justice in prosecuting you for what was done in self defense, and pinning one more murder on the copycat killer won’t make much of a difference. It’s...logical.”

She pulled back, looking him dead in the face, and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from flinching away. 

“In the book,” she said. “I want to talk about the two of you, and how you’ve helped me get better. If...If I mention you two getting together…?”

Will was stunned by the realization of what she was going for. “You want to paint the picture of a found family,” he said. “Three broken people recovering together from the damage he did. That...would help all of us, actually.” He wondered why he didn’t think of that, sooner. “Abigail, that’s genius. Even if you just brought the idea up to Lounds, it would absolutely end up getting leaked on her blog at some point. It would take a lot of pressure off.”

She smiled widely, looking frantically pleased at the confirmation her ideas were good. “Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll be our alibi.”

“Kalamata pork,” Hannibal introduced, entering the room, startling both its occupants. He paused, setting the plates onto the table. “Ah, did I interrupt a meeting?”

Abigail and Will both took seats at the table, and the girl began explaining the updated plan to Hannibal, who swelled with pride at the beasts his two pet projects were becoming. 

Things were really starting to line up for him, and he couldn’t wait to see where it went. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A date!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i was gonna put the date starting in the last chapter BUT i got the order all messed up lmao so here are the events that were originally intended to happen BEFORE abigail was introduced into the plot

Hannibal left to take Abigail back to the hospital, leaving Will sitting awkwardly in the man’s house by himself. 

He took the opportunity to do something he’d always secretly wanted to do, and flip through the sketchbook the man left sitting on his desk all the time. 

What he saw was...breathtaking.

Page upon page depicted human beings in various graceful poses, anatomy lovingly rendered with the accuracy of one who knew each and every muscle in the body. Most of the drawings were nude, and had a similar feel to classical paintings and sculptures, created by one who truly believed the figures he captured were incomparably beautiful. 

He turned each page with a light touch, making sure not to place his fingers in any place that would risk to smudge the graphite. 

Sketches of flowers and trees and animals were speckled throughout the sketchbook, but they were passing observations, nothing really standing out to him. 

That was until he was just about ready to close the sketchbook, and he noticed that one of the pages was spaced out with a scalpel, Hannibal having left one of his preferred makeshift drawing utensils as a space marker for what was presumably the most recent of his sketches.

Will shifted the book, opening along the gap in the pages, casually looking to see what Hannibal had been in the process of.

When the book fell open, Will’s breath caught in his throat.

The drawing was of  _ him.  _

Hannibal had drawn a bust of him with water pooled around his shoulders, entirely at rest - his eyes softly shut, his lips slightly parted. 

A closer look revealed his hair was slicked back with water, and his hairline was wet. While it had the look of someone emerging from having dipped into a bath, it only called to mind the image of what he imagined he looked like after waking from a heavy night sweat. That angle made the relaxed features of his face seem less like tranquility, and more like resignation: the waters were rising up to drown him and he’d simply chosen not to fight any longer. 

Soft clicks alerted him to Hannibal’s return, and he closed the sketchbook, returning it to its place on the desk as he went to welcome his temporary roommate. 

“Will,” Hannibal greeted, looking slightly surprised. “It’s late. You didn’t have to stay awake on my account.”

“You’ve drugged me into sleep for two nights in a row,” Will told him. “Without that, I tend to pass out closer to early morning than late night.”

Hannibal let out a soft, breathy laugh. “I would hate for you to develop a dependency on sleeping aids. Come with me - I’ll make you some tea, and we will try a more natural route to relaxation.”

  
  
  
  


Will ended up sipping tea on the couch, with Hannibal across from him in an armchair.

“I looked through your sketchbook,” he admitted, when the silence had started to feel oppressive. 

“Did you?” Hannibal sounded intrigued. “The one on my desk? I confess I’m not even certain which drawings are in that particular book. I’ve filled many over the years, and I have trouble remembering where the lines between them were drawn.”

“There were a lot of portraits,” Will said. He drummed his fingers on his mug, debating whether he wanted to continue, and ultimately just decided to go for it. “The drawing you had marked was of me.”

Hannibal hummed in acknowledgement. “Does that bother you?”

“Why’d you draw  _ me?”  _

“Art is a way for me to sort through my thoughts,” Hannibal explained. “When I’m troubled, putting the concerns to paper makes it easier to see clearly. In this regard, I draw you often, actually.”

Will stared at him, baffled. “Really?”

Hannibal smiled at him, the tiniest twitch of his lips, before standing, and Will watched him cross the room to go through one of his bookshelves. A moment later, he returned, carrying a smaller sketchbook in his hands. 

He flipped through it as he headed back, selecting a page and then passing it to Will, who took it with a heavy suspicion that he’d dipped back into a particularly vivid hallucination. 

The page was filled with several smaller sketches, rather than a full picture. Will recognized his face in profile, glasses sitting low on his nose, in one corner. Under that, there was a figure that he supposed was him from behind, in a pose that reminded him of his body language mid-lecture. The rest of them followed the same theme: Will with a vacant look on his face, probably mid-dissociation; Will with brows pinched and looking close to angry; Will with his eyes closed and his face muscles slack. 

It was...a study, in a sense. Hannibal had drawn out a map of his emotions, highlighting the contrast between each of the faces he wore in a daytime. 

“You really do draw me,” Will murmured, stunned. “I’m...not sure how to feel about that, honestly.”

“Any reaction is justifiable,” Hannibal replied, taking his seat again in the armchair. “Many people dislike the idea of having their likeness captured in any form, especially without their awareness and consent. As I said, I draw to sort out my thoughts - if it helps you put things at all in perspective, I believe those were drawn shortly after the case of Tobias Budge.” 

“When you thought I died?” Will filled in. “You drew these to compartmentalize. You were using my face to ground yourself.”

“I was put into a situation where I had no control over the outcome,” Hannibal said. “Art is a good way to cope with loss of control. You cannot control your subject, not completely, but you can control your rendering of them.”

Will tipped his head, watching Hannibal curiously. “You have a control complex.”

Hannibal hummed in confirmation. “I pursued the medical field because I desired control over life and death. Instead, I had the terrible realization that no man can determine the end of another’s life, not completely.”

“So you stopped trying to save them on an operating table, and started trying to save them before they got there.” Will’s mind turned over this new information, picking it apart from every angle. “That’s why you studied psychological manipulation, isn’t it? You wanted to be able to control what every person you talked to walks away thinking.” 

“You are apt as always,” Hannibal complimented. “I rarely ever refer patients to other doctors, even when they would likely be better suited to another’s care, because to do so is admitting that I cannot change their situation on my own.”

Will straightened, just a bit, as another thought occurred to him. “You helped Abigail hide the body,” he said. “You didn’t help her work out an alibi, you didn’t help her plead her case. You helped her  _ hide  _ it.” 

Hannibal said nothing, simply raised an eyebrow, as a silent prompt for Will to continue. 

“You took control,” Will said. “Any other way of handling that situation would have been surrendering all control of it, and you didn’t want that. So you made her crime into your own, so that you could determine how things played out.”

“Guilty as charged,” Hannibal said. “Or not charged, as the case may be. We’ve yet to find out.”

Another piece clicked into place. “Abigail dug up the body, didn’t she?”

Hannibal paused, taking a long sip of his own tea, before meeting Will in rarely-accepted eye contact. “She did.”

“She wanted control, too,” Will said. “She took it back from you.” At Hannibal’s slight nod, Will frowned. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Hannibal said. “I let her know I was unhappy, but there was nothing I could do about it. I understood her reasoning, if nothing else.”

Will narrowed his eyes, examining the man, but could see no sign of a lie in the blank composure of Hannibal Lecter. 

He relaxed back onto the couch, and sipped his tea. “That’s why you like me, isn’t it?” Will asked. “I can’t manage to be in charge of anything, so I take whatever instructions I’m given. I go where I’m pointed. That’s ideal, for you.”

“No.”

Will looked back up, surprised to see Hannibal leaning forward across his own lap, looking almost  _ angry _ . 

“At first glance, you seem to be easy to control, yes,” Hannibal said. “But you are not. Whatever tasks you were given by Jack or Alana or myself or anyone else, they were taken in and twisted into whatever you wanted to do yourself. You take suggestions readily, but how you act on them is always a choice you make of your own accord. There are times when I am convinced you are going to do one thing, and you do something entirely different.  _ That  _ is my favorite trait of yours, Will: with you, I do not need to worry about my control. I have influence into your actions, but that does not cheapen any act of yours, because you ultimately decide what to do on your own.”

“You can control what I think about doing, but not what I actually do,” Will summarized. “I’m keeping you on your toes.”

“Indeed you are.” 

Will sat still for a moment, before rising to his feet, going to put his mug into the sink. “I think I’m going to bed, now. That’s a lot to think about.”

“Understandable,” Hannibal replied. “Here, I’ll take the cup- oh, and also, would you be willing to attend an event with me tomorrow night? Short notice, but that gives you less time to build anxiety.”

Will snorted, passing his cup over. “What kind of event?”

Hannibal just smiled at him.

“That bad, huh?” Will muttered. “Okay, fine. It’s a date.” 

“That it is.”

Will turned on a heel, heading for the guest bedroom with a burning face. 

He probably wasn’t going to sleep - Hannibal had given him way too much to think about. 

  
  
  
  


Will spoke to Hannibal only in passing the next morning, partly out of awkwardness and partly out of exhaustion, because he had only managed a couple hours of sleep. Those hours had been deep, restful sleep, which was odd, but they were still not enough to prepare him for a full day of social interaction. Doubly so when he remembered he’d agreed to go to an unknown event as Hannibal’s date.

He just hoped it didn’t require a suit, or anything. His formal wardrobe was...limited. It was mostly limited to grey toned slacks and two or three sport coats. Somehow, he doubted that would suffice. 

His classes went by in a blur, bringing him to the end of the day before he knew it, the lack of a lunchtime visitor making it much harder to judge the passing of time. 

When he left, he spent a good fifteen minutes sitting in his car, debating just going back to his own house, before he finally gave in and drove to Hannibal’s.

The man met him at the door with a soft smile, and a slight pinch beside his eye that spoke of mischief. 

“I took my free time today to visit Wolf Trap,” he said, as though it were a casual drive to the next town over, rather than an hour long drive across a state line. “And retrieve some more of your things. Specifically clothing, better suited for tonight.”

Will had plenty of things he could say:  _ did you take my keys,  _ for one, because Hannibal wouldn’t have had a way in otherwise.  _ What did you grab,  _ also, because that was ominous. 

Instead, he asked, “How are my dogs?”

“Very enthusiastic,” Hannibal replied. “I took small sausages with me to gift them with. They seemed happy with me, after that.”

Will bit down on the urge to sigh. His dogs were going to be so put out when Will went back home and they had to return to their usual routine. They were probably enjoying the free reign of the property and the visits from unknown friends with treats. 

“I selected some clothes of yours that were better suited to a formal event without deviating from your standard style,” Hannibal said. “I put them on your bed.”

Hannibal had apparently taken their conversation about his controlling nature as a cue that he no longer had to be subtle about it, because he’d just admitted to planning the evening down to Will’s  _ wardrobe.  _

Nothing he could do about it, now, though.

“I guess I’ll go get changed, then.” 

  
  
  


Hannibal had taken him to an  _ opera.  _

It was being held in a local theatre, which Hannibal informed him was a larger venue than his usual events. Apparently, most artistic endeavors were not popular enough to garner more attention than suited a black box theatre with a couple dozen guests, but this was a popular story and a travelling performance company that had a somewhat large following that had come out to support them. 

“The company will be mixed,” Hannibal said. “As such, there is less pressure on you.”

“Less room to be judged by the vultures of high society?”

Hannibal’s lip twitched upward, just slightly. “Quite. It also allowed me to get us slightly more private seating.”

“Good,” Will said, “because unless this is written entirely in cajun slang, I’ll need you to translate for me. What’s the story here, for…” He looked to his program. “ _ Hercule mourant?” _

“Hercules Dying,” Hannibal said. “An interesting story. A jealous lover attempts to win back Hercules’ favor with a love potion, only to find that it was actually a poison, and she’d unwittingly sent him to his death.”

“...Wow,” Will muttered. “And the moral of this story is…?”

“Actions made in the heat of the moment are rarely for the better.” Hannibal reached out, entirely casually, and took Will’s hand into his own, guiding him into the building and toward their seats as though the contact were entirely normal. “I suppose one could also read more into its portrayal of relationships, but I choose to take away only that desperation makes one careless.”

Will was only half listening. His hands, always sensitive, felt like he had something buzzing under the skin of his palms. He arched his hand slightly within Hannibal’s, giving them a bit of space between contact points so that it was less intense of a sensation. Hannibal must have noticed the discomfort in his actions, because the man shifted, lifting Will’s hand and settling it into the crook of his elbow instead. 

Will’s shoulders relaxed as he accepted the change, grateful that Hannibal had been so easily open to coping with Will’s weird  _ thing _ about hands. He’d need to work on that, eventually, if they were going to pull of a whole fake relationship.

For now, though, he took his seat next to his pretend boyfriend and settled in to watch a performance he could barely follow in a language he had only a passing knowledge of.

Next time Hannibal wanted to drag him out for a cultural event, Will was suggesting an art gallery. Dissociating in front of a painting would be vastly superior to...whatever  _ this  _ was.

He settled into his chair, watching the stage, as the lights changed and the first person walked out onto it. 

_ I’m on a date,  _ he thought, then, and scrambled to keep from panicking in the moment.  _ I’m on a date, with Hannibal Lecter, at a fucking opera.  _

He was tempted to take a picture for evidence. God knows Jack and Alana wouldn’t believe him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> roughly the outfit im picturing will in for this, because im gay for soft grahams  
> 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The opera is an interesting event.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is officially the LAST chapter with old content in it  
> and most of the old content is stuff that i never published, just had sitting in drafts  
> also this chapter is Gay, but that's not really new

There was a reason Will left his car radio off, and he remembered it just as the performance began.

Empathy disorders really,  _ really  _ liked music. 

As the orchestra tune filled the theatre, he felt it all the way down to his bones, and realized that it was not going to matter what language the story itself was told in. He was going to feel the emotions they wanted him to, regardless. 

The tune of a stringed instrument - his ear wasn’t trained enough to determine what type - had his mind pulling up the tattered fragments of Tobias Budge’s headspace, and he pushed them back as best he could. If he was going to dissociate, he was going to do it with his own thoughts. 

Hannibal’s arm brushed his on the armrest between their chairs, and Will glanced down to it, looking at where Hannibal’s hand was curled over the edge of it. 

Will’s biggest problem with their hands meeting earlier had been the direct contact between their palms, which had made his hand feel trapped and had seemed terribly intimate. With Hannibal’s palm turned down, though…

Hesitantly, Will extended his arm alongside Hannibal’s, and rested his fingers over the back of the other man’s hand.

Hannibal’s fingers shifted, parting slightly to let Will’s drop down between them, making the contact a bit closer to traditionally holding hands. Will appreciated him not turning his hand over - the doctor must have noted his discomfort at his original attempt.

_ This is ridiculous,  _ Will told himself.  _ No one’s even looking at us. _

Still, something deeper pointed out,  _ that makes this the perfect time to practice. _

Will forced himself to relax, trying to tune out the sensation of physical contact with another person enough to focus on the music filling the theatre. 

Somehow, he doubted he’d be able to pay much attention. 

  
  
  
  


Hannibal, Will quickly realized, genuinely enjoyed the opera. 

It wasn’t a fake interest that he had him sitting up in his seat, that had his fingers twitching under Will’s at points of conflict, that had him shifting and tensing as plot twists were revealed. 

It also wasn’t the soul-deep dedication he showed when cooking, where it was less an interest and more a fundamental part of himself.

This was something he did, of his own volition, for  _ fun.  _

Will found himself looking at Hannibal more often than the stage, watching the man’s face subtly react to the emotions of each song. 

_ It’s empathy,  _ he realized.  _ He’s empathizing.  _

Music had a way of getting people to  _ feel  _ things, and Hannibal was no exception. Whatever issue he had that resulted in his odd, over-controlled personality, it stripped his ability to really  _ feel  _ things with the same intensity that music portrayed. Will had never seen the man openly emotional: he’d been mildly irritated or slightly amused, but never honestly happy or sad or angry. This, though, was his way of getting around that.

Will forced himself to relate to killers and demons, but Hannibal saved his limited empathy for the lovers and peaceful people. 

When the performance ended, Hannibal joined the audience in a standing ovation. Will, uncomfortable as he was, went along with it. 

He couldn’t remember half of what happened on the stage, and he’d understood less than a third of the dialogue, but he’d been able to enjoy it nonetheless, just for the third-hand empathy. 

Now, though, came the hard part.

“We have to socialize, now, I guess?” He asked.

Hannibal hooked their fingers together again, once again putting the backs of their hands together rather than the palms - learning fast. “We do, indeed.”

Hannibal led them to the foyer where everyone was fetching finger foods and glasses of champagne, chatting politely as they went. Will stuck to his side like glue, carefully avoiding eye contact with the people in the room. 

Hannibal fetched two champagne glasses off of a waiter’s tray and handed one to Will, giving him a slight smile that suggested it was an attempt to give him liquid courage. 

Will nodded abruptly, downing it like a shot and handing the empty glass off to a waiter walking past. Hannibal chuckled slightly. 

“That is not what I meant for you to do,” he said, “but if it works…”

“It doesn’t,” Will replied. “There’s still too many people.”

“If it makes it easier, we could-…”

But Will wouldn’t know what he was going to say, because a tall brunette woman appeared then, dragging a man who must have been her spouse along with her. “Hannibal Lecter. You’ve not been to the last two operas, and don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

“Mrs. Komeda,” Hannibal greeted. “May I introduce you to Will Graham?” He gestured to his guest. 

She looked Will over, and Will couldn’t help but feel like he was being circled by a shark. “Charmed,” she announced after a brief pause, extending a hand - overturned, as though he was to kiss it. Alarmed, he simply looked at her, then at Hannibal. 

Hannibal’s small, polite smile returned. “Forgive my partner, he is unused to social events.” 

_ Partner.  _ Will swallowed. “Sorry,” he apologized. “Normally when I’m surrounded by people it’s because there was a crime.” 

The woman looked a bit concerned, and Hannibal filled her in. “Will works with the Federal Bureau of Investigations as a consultant agent. He also teaches at the local police academy.” 

She gave a thousand watt smile. “Snatching up federal agents now, Doctor Lecter?” she teased. “Where did the two of you meet?” 

Well, that wasn’t a pleasant story.  _ He was sent to psychologically evaluate me.  _

Hannibal stepped in, though, thank Christ. “I work occasionally as a psychological profiler for the FBI. As it is similar to the work Will does, we were often paired together on cases.” 

Mrs. Komeda gave a small hum of interest. “Do you have a background in psychology, Mr. Graham?” 

Will shook his head. “No, I just…am overly empathetic.” 

She quirked an eyebrow. 

“Will has an astounding level of mirror neurons. He is able to understand nearly any point of view, and therefore has miraculous insight into criminal behavior.” 

Mrs. Komeda eyed Will again, something strange in her eyes, some sort of dark approval, as though she had simply deemed him worthy of continuing to breathe her air. Will gave a somewhat strained smile in response. 

A noise came from the side, and the small gathering turn to look, noting the disturbance: a pretty young woman who Will distantly recognized as one of the performers from the opera. 

“Lenora,” Hannibal breathed as she approached. “You were phenomenal, as always.” 

“Oh, stop,” the woman waved him off. “You flatter me.”

“I would not say it were it not true,” Hannibal insisted.

“Fair enough - you  _ are _ far too polite to lie,” she drawled. “Now, introduce me to your new beau?” 

“Ah, yes,” Hannibal said, ignoring the irony of her statement. “This is Will Graham. Will Graham, meet Miss Lenora Jones, our shining star of the local opera.” 

The woman smiled broadly, extending a hand in much the same manner Komeda had. “A pleasure.” 

Will actually took the hand this time, shaking it, which seemed to go over well enough. If he’d done something wrong, no one commented on it, at least. “Forgive me for not being very sociable,” Will excused. “I’m more used to the company of academy students and dogs than peers.”

“Dogs?” Komeda asked. “Do you train them?”

“Unofficially,” Will said, resisting the urge to rub at his neck or loosen his tie, or any other nervous tic. “My empathy extends to most animals, but dogs especially. I have a bad habit of adopting as many as I can get into my house.”

Hannibal gave Will an affectionate glance. “Will has a gentle nature. He cannot stand by while a stray goes hungry, and he lives far away from any respectable shelters.” 

Lenora tsked. “Hannibal Lecter and a  _ dog lover.  _ The only time I’ve ever seen you with a dog, you looked ready to bolt.”

“It was a small, loud dog,” Hannibal informed Will. “A chihuahua.”

Will’s nose twitched. “I have a hard time picturing you getting along with a small dog. They tend to be very rude little creatures.”

“Precisely,” Hannibal said. “Your dogs, at least, will fall to heel once they’ve been fed a few scraps.”

Will’s eyebrows knitted together. “I still don’t know how I feel about you feeding my dogs.”

Hannibal let out a light laugh. “I assure you, it was plain, unspiced sausage. They would not have had any trouble with it.” 

“Aren’t you two cute,” Lenora cooed. “Oh, Hannibal, we  _ must  _ celebrate you finally breaking your single trend. Perhaps…?”

“A dinner party?” Hannibal filled in, catching onto her hopeful tone. 

“Oh, please, Hannibal,” Komeda joined in. “It has been so long since our last dinner. About as long as it’s been since you’ve stepped into the opera hall.” 

“I see I am not getting away with this,” Hannibal commented. “As I’ve said, you cannot force a feast…however, I suppose I  _ have  _ been feeling somewhat inspired, as of late.” He hooked an arm around Will’s waist, entirely casually, as though to accentuate his point, which made Will flush immediately. “Very well. I will send out invitations shortly.”

The women grinned, and the pleasantries continued for a few moments before they each excused themselves to chat with other patrons of the hall. 

When they left, shortly after, Will couldn’t help but note that Hannibal never removed his arm. 

  
  
  


Will laid in Hannibal’s guest bed that night staring at the expensive, fancy lights and wondering what went wrong in his life for him to end up there. He’d been good as a child, no outstanding instances of disobedience. He’d never had a long term partner, so that ruled out things like adultery. 

And wow, how had he forgotten that? Will Graham had never  _ dated,  _ and yet, here he was, pretending his way through his first “relationship.” 

He was not a virgin, he’d taken care of that particular detail in high school - like checking it off a list, which was the first sign he wasn’t exactly  _ normal _ \- but people had always been foreign creatures to him. He’d never found one and thought  _ yes, this one I can see a future with.  _ He’d barely ever had friends. 

Even now, aside his tentative relationship with the FBI forensics team and…whatever  _ this  _ was with Hannibal… he had no one. 

Eventually the routine of sleep he’d had for the past few days caught up to him, and he dozed off, into a restless if dreamless sleep. 

  
  
  


Will stumbled out of bed to the sounds of Hannibal doing…whatever he did…in the kitchen, and shrugged on the robe Hannibal had loaned him (trying not to notice how it smelled, how it felt, the soft texture against his skin and the slight sensory overload of it), padding into the other room to join his host. 

His thoughts from the night before haunting him, he had barely stepped into the kitchen before blurting out, “Are we friends?”

Hannibal did not jump, but he did look slightly startled when he turned. “Will. I did not hear you come in.” He set down the bowl in his hands, where it looked like he’d been mixing another round of eggs. “As for your question - I’d like to think we are. Why?”

“I don’t really… _ have  _ friends,” Will pointed out. “I can count the number of people who will put up with me for more than a few minutes on one hand. It seems weird that my first friend is the guy pretending to date me.” 

Hannibal gave him one of his small, amused smiles, and resumed mixing the eggs. “I don’t think you give people enough credit. Alana would consider you a friend, surely, though your relationship is currently strained. Beverly Katz is fond of you, I believe, as are her team members. You have a few friends, and I’m sure many others would willingly join the list, should you show an inclination.” He gave Will a look that could possibly be described as  _ fond.  _ “You are better company than you think you are.” 

Will gave him an unimpressed stare. “Half the time I don’t even know where I am. The last time I saw Alana I nearly told her to piss off. The last time I saw Beverly, she watched me space out and punch a mirror. I think you’re giving me too  _ much  _ credit.” 

Hannibal shook his head. “You can be funny. You are relentlessly kind. You are rude, at times, but you always seem more bothered by it yourself than anyone else is. You have…a grand potential. A potential you won’t touch because you’re afraid of it.” His tone started to take on a weird quality Will couldn’t place, but it was gone by the next word. “Will Graham, one day, you will recognize your own worth. I’d be happy to be by your side, as your friend, when that day comes.” 

Will had the feeling he was missing something important, under those words, but he desperately refused to look.

_ See? _

He wouldn’t give in. He wouldn’t do that to himself. 

Hannibal Lecter was leading him somewhere, and call him crazy, but he felt better just following along. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these two are fucking married, pass it on


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The weekend arrives, and Will's mind catches up to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is a Doozy  
> emetophobia warning for the last scene and no, i'm not giving any more context. have fun kids ;)

The coming of the weekend brought with it a strange feeling of restlessness, as Will tried to determine what to do with himself. Hannibal did not take patients on Saturdays, and only took them on Sundays if absolutely necessary, which meant they had two days with no plans to spend in each other’s company. 

Will had spent his Friday mostly in a daze, not really sure how to cope with the realizations from that morning and the night before. The more time he was spending with Hannibal, the more he was learning about the man, and he wasn’t sure what to do with the information.

In light of all the conflicting emotions his time with Hannibal had stirred up, combined with the pressing knowledge that he would have two full days in the man’s company, it was really no surprise that Will’s mind chose to mutiny.

  
  
  
  


Nails scratched against his scalp as fingers fisted in his curls, dragging his head back just a bit to expose his neck. Lips found his pulse point, holding against the artery to feel the heartbeats pick up in speed. The mouth made its way lower, reaching his collarbone, where teeth found purchase in his skin. 

His body felt hot and his skin tingled with an unidentifiable energy, and he was lost in the sensation of another body against his. He couldn’t even keep track of what was going on, fully, awareness just out of his grasp. 

“Hannibal,” he breathed out, soft as a prayer.

His spine arched as his prayer was rewarded.

  
  
  
  


Hannibal watched Will’s mouth fall open, harsh breaths coming through, and raised an eyebrow.

Hearing his own name fall from those lips was a surprise, and Hannibal very nearly missed the vein for Will’s IV as he realized what he was dreaming about.

“You never cease to amaze,” Hannibal murmured. Will had been looking closer and closer at him, blowing through one wall after another, but Hannibal could never have anticipated that the forced intimacy of his schemes would result in something like  _ this.  _

His plans had been based around the assumption that Will would become dependent on him as a friend, but...if Will was starting to have trouble compartmentalizing their relationship, distinguishing between what was real and what was staged…

He could take advantage of that. The actual adjustments he’d have to make were minor, and he wasn’t opposed to making them in the slightest. 

Pretty soon, the treatment of Will’s encephalitis would really kick in. Symptoms usually appeared in reverse as the swelling in the brain receded, which meant soon Will would be having vivid hallucinations and dissociative episodes.

If he combined Will’s shaky grasp of the world with his own manipulations, and now this…

Well. There was an idea.

  
  
  


Will woke up the next morning, content for a full four seconds, before getting hit full force with the panic and shame of what he had dreamt. 

He showered -  _ thoroughly -  _ and dressed, and made his way into the kitchen, all the while grateful that he never made eye contact anyway, so Hannibal probably wouldn’t notice the difference in his avoidance. 

When he reached the kitchen, though, he paused in the doorway, because Hannibal was…

... _ Humming?  _

The sound was faint, but sounded vaguely familiar to one of the songs from the opera Thursday night. 

“You’re in a good mood,” Will muttered. 

Hannibal looked over his shoulder, and greeted him with a rare bright smile. “Good morning, Will. Breakfast is on the way - I was in the mood for something a bit lighter, so I’m making crepes.”

Will blinked, mind racing as he tried to puzzle out what exactly had gotten the man so...bubbly. Try as he might, he couldn’t empathize with the behavior. It really did just seem to be that he was in a good mood.

_ Maybe he had a good dream,  _ Will thought, only to flush and force his eyes away at the immediate memory that thought summoned. 

Honestly. He needed some space, if his brain was starting to go that far against him. 

That brought him to another thought, which he latched onto for the slight peace it offered. “Do you have any plans for today? Or are we just going to stare at each other for a few hours in awkward silence?” 

“I had nothing particular in mind,” Hannibal said. “I’ll probably spend most of this weekend planning my next dinner party, since I’ve already committed to hosting one. I already had a loose idea for one, I just need to narrow down the details. And the date - would next weekend be alright, for you?”

Will blinked, confused, before realizing that as Hannibal’s... _ whatever _ ...he was going to be expected to be there. 

_ Great.  _

“Yeah, that works,” he said. “The only thing I ever do on weekends is work with my dogs and hover around crime scenes.” That reminded him it’d been several days since he’d started sleeping at Hannibal’s, and he grimaced. “Speaking of my dogs, I think I’m gonna spend the day at home. I feel bad leaving them with just a sitter for this long.” 

“If that’s what you wish,” Hannibal agreed easily. “Will you be coming back this evening?”

Part of Will wanted to say no, but another actually toyed with the idea of  _ yes.  _ Instead of giving either, he dodged, with a noncommittal, “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Well, you are welcome if you choose to return,” Hannibal told him. “Either tonight or tomorrow. If I don’t see you by lunchtime tomorrow, I will call you.”

Will hummed in acknowledgement, and wondered why the whole exchange felt so weird to him.

Was it just him, or did Hannibal seem... _ eager?  _

What was he planning to do, when Will wasn’t there?

He wasn’t sure he really wanted to know.

  
  
  


Will’s dogs greeted him at his door with enthusiastically wagging tails and full-body shakes, and Will felt terrible for having left them alone for so long. 

He discovered upon entering his home that his laundry basket had been raided, and various articles of clothing had been dragged about the house. 

_ They were after my scent,  _ Will thought, which was followed by another wave of guilt. 

“Sorry, guys,” Will said, turning over his palms toward them for the dogs to sniff and lick excitedly, welcoming him home. “I bet I smell weird, huh? That’s Hannibal.” He scratched behind the ears of the closest dogs. “He brought you sausage, apparently, so you guys probably love him.” 

Will headed into his room, looking around for any sign of disturbance beyond the overturned laundry basket. He couldn’t see anything that seemed out of place, and he wondered how much was genuinely undisturbed and how much was corrected by Hannibal during his brief visit. One of the biggest things Will had learned in the past few days was that Hannibal bordered on obsessive-compulsive, extending his control complex to even objects. He was always quietly shifting things back and forth until they sat in the precise spot he wanted them, and then getting silently annoyed when Will accidentally knocked something out of place and pleased whenever Will managed to put it back where it had started. Will’s house, in contrast, was probably stressful for him, as he tended to ignore all systems of organization and surrender every surface to the inevitable collection of dog hair and dust. 

He fell back onto his bed, relaxing into the deep-worn creases of his matress, letting out a happy sigh as his dogs jumped up and settled down around him. 

Max’s head dropped onto his shoulder, Zoe crawled up to lay on his stomach, and Winston settled in across his legs, all effectively pinning him down. Will felt much more comfortable under their weight, especially with all the other dogs snoozing in a circle around him. 

“Yeah, I’m probably not going back,” Will decided out loud. “I missed you guys.”

Besides, he couldn’t help but remember his dream again, and  _ that  _ was something he’d rather have safely repressed by the time he saw Hannibal again. 

He’d rest, he decided, staying in bed recovering from his social exhaustion with the comforting presence of his pack. 

That in mind, he closed his eyes, and let himself drift.

  
  
  
  


The woods were on fire. 

Will watched the flames climb ever higher with the kind of calm that he only ever had in dreams and hallucinations, like his brain was just failing to include his anxiety in the worlds it created for him to drown in. Which, in truth, it probably didn't mean much at all: at this point, there was no telling how exactly Will would react to a real catastrophe. If someone set the woods around his house on fire, he had no way of knowing if he'd experience anything beyond a morbid fascination. 

Through the red and yellow flame, he caught sight of a shadow, and he knew the patterns of his dreams well enough to understand he was meant to follow it. 

The shadow was past a wall of flame, but Will could see a path beyond it, and so he was forced to make a choice: did he trust the flame to be a product of his mind, and walk through it, or did he let the shadow get away?

He looked out, meeting cold eyes the color of rust, watching him expectantly.

He stepped into the fire. 

The flames felt like fingers, gently brushing his skin before hooking in, trying to drag him back. Their touch was desperate, like a warning, as though the fire knew he was walking into even more danger than it could pose. 

_ Turn back,  _ every instinct screamed.

The eyes never looked away, and under them, Will couldn’t even falter. There was danger where he was going, yes, but that gaze expected him to conquer it, and he was not about to disappoint. 

He passed through the fire.

The same second he stepped out of it, it was gone, the rest of the woods vanishing along with it. He was at a lakeside, staring into the eyes of the stag that had haunted him for so long now. 

He raised a hand, resting it on the raven-feathered head of the beast, and felt for once at peace. Here he was not being stalked, but being guided, and he’d finally caught up. 

The stag turned, slowly, and Will looked to follow it.

On the other side of the water, two figures stood, familiar as breathing. Hannibal and Abigail stood side by side, and Will watched as the former pressed a knife into the latter’s hands, guiding her to crouch beside a body on the ground.

As Abigail sunk the blade into her father’s chest, Will woke up.

  
  
  
  


Will woke up sweating for the first time in days.

_ Hannibal was grooming her,  _ he realized, and everything made simultaneously less and more sense. 

Hannibal’s control complex was extending so far as to him claiming her potential to be a killer as his own, guiding her to start viewing humans as prey instead of peers, because then every life she ever took would be claimed in part in his name. That power was intoxicating to him, and…

And Hannibal knew this, because at some point, he’d done it on his own.

Hannibal had killed someone before.

The revelation felt almost hollow, not bringing any satisfaction of a puzzle solved, just a weary acceptance that the truth he’d been chasing was in his hands. He was still missing so much,  _ so  _ much, but the pieces he had were enough for him to make a choice.

_ The question is,  _ Hannibal had asked, about their metaphorical rope,  _ will you choose to hang  _ me _ with it? _

Will had no proof, but Jack had taken his word on less. Will had no names, no bodies, no evidence, but everyone made mistakes. He could find  _ where _ , easily. 

He remembered the flames of his dream, pulling at him, trying to warn him. Once he’d passed through, there was no going back. 

Fire was nothing compared to what threatened to consume him in the company of Hannibal Lecter.

On shaky legs, he stood, fighting the nausea and dizziness that he’d almost forgotten in the peace of his past week. He took unsteady steps through the pack of his dogs lying about, weaving his way through them to his kitchen.

He poured himself a glass of water, took a single sip of it, and retched, vomiting into his sink. 

The disgust he felt had nothing to do with his body’s betrayal, and everything to do with his mind’s. 

Because as hard as Will thought, as hard as Will tried to listen to the instinct to stop moving…

...Will Graham had already passed through the flames. There was no turning back.

For better, or for worse, Will Graham had committed to being beside Hannibal Lecter. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;) ;) ;)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confrontations, revelations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is just over 1500 words but theyre uh. a Lot  
> warning for...everything. just. everything

Will’s nap had deposited him in Saturday’s mid-afternoon, and he was tempted to return to sleep, and simply rest until he was forced to venture out again.

He knew full well that wasn’t an option, though: even if it were a reasonable action, there was no way he would get any decent sleep, now. 

Part of him wanted to burrow underground and hide for however long it took him to forget his discovery. Another part wanted to dial Jack’s number, and tell him that Hannibal was probably a person of interest. 

The part that won out was the one that had him patting his dogs’ heads in apology, grabbing his keys, and heading right back to Baltimore.

  
  
  
  


Will stood in front of Hannibal’s door for a while, debating if he wanted to knock or abandon the idea and go back home. 

The decision was made for him, when the door opened, an amused-looking Hannibal standing in the doorframe.

He looked the same as always, and Will was almost disappointed, seeking the lines of his face for some sign of the darkness behind his mask. 

His eyes ended up abandoning their scanning to lock onto Hannibal’s, the ever-uncomfortable intimacy of the eye contact multiplied when he caught sight of the confused, concerned look Hannibal was giving him. 

“Who was it?” Will blurted, eyes never straying - the eye contact was the least ambitious part of their interaction, right then. “Who did you kill?”

Hannibal stared at him, shock making his features go slack, before he walled off. He took a step back, and to the side, allowing Will to push past him into the house. 

“You have been thinking,” Hannibal said, as he shut - and quickly  _ locked _ \- the door. “And you come to me now with the implication-...”

“Hannibal,” Will interrupted. “ _ Who?” _

The two stared each other down, across the room.

Will had Hannibal in a corner, and he knew that was the least cooperative version of the man he’d ever get. He shook his head, and tried again, speaking gently. “You wanted Abigail’s kills under your control,” he said, trying to restate the path of empathy he’d followed. “You knew what she had done and you thought she’d do it again, because you would have. Which you know, because you’ve  _ done it.  _ Who did you kill?”

Hannibal watched him, face unreadable, before abruptly turning, heading into his kitchen.

_ A sanctuary,  _ Will thought, following close at his heels.  _ He is safest there. Both emotionally, and… _

Will couldn’t help but side eye the many knives Hannibal owned as they entered the room. Somehow, even with the knowledge he could very easily be walking into his own death, he couldn’t find it in himself to be afraid. Above all else, he was  _ curious -  _ what had made Hannibal into what he was? What had undone a man like him?

There was a cutting board out, and vegetables on it, that he’d apparently been in the middle of chopping. Without a word or single sound, Hannibal picked up the large knife that lay next to it, and started back in on his work. His cuts were slow, precise and deliberate, and Will wondered if they were meant to be grounding or to imply a threat.

They stood in silence, the slight click of the blade hitting bamboo board an eerie background metronome, counting out the seconds. 

After maybe ten of them, Hannibal began to speak. 

“You are aware that I am originally Lithuanian, yes?”

Will frowned at the seemingly random topic. “I knew you had an accent. I didn’t know where it was from.”

“I left the country in my teens, when my aunt started to fear the unrest in the country would turn to revolution, and studied in France for some time.” The knife’s blade scraped across the board as he used it to push aside his completed slices, a whole eggplant quickly making its way to take its own turn. 

Hannibal’s initial slice went in slightly askew, a rare display of unsteadiness, and that was Will’s first clue that this story was going nowhere pleasant. 

“Before that, though,” Hannibal said. “I lived in a country that was...unstable. Lithuanian history is long, and I won’t bother with details, but some years before my birth there had been a change of power. Many citizens were...displeased. Revolts were attempted, and failed, each and every time. Eventually, they ceased - but the revolutionaries and civil disruptors were not gone. They were simply hiding.”

Will wondered if Hannibal was going to end up saying he’d joined them, fighting for his country, but decided not to offer any verbal input, lest he stop talking entirely.

He wouldn’t give Hannibal an out, where he could easily accept a false story from Will’s own mind and use that as his truth. He wanted to know what  _ really  _ happened.

“I was an orphan, and originally under the care of an uncle who did not particularly care for us.”

“Us?” Will couldn’t help interrupting. 

The knife hesitated for the briefest of seconds. “My sister. Six years my junior.” There was a long moment of silence, before he softly continued. “When she was four and I ten, there was a minor scrape between the military and some lingering insurgents. A few of the younger, untested soldiers deserted, and fled to the woods that surrounded our land.”

Will had a feeling he’d just reached the answer to his question, even if the story was still ongoing.

“My sister,” Hannibal started, only to pause again. “...I took frequent walks around the outer edge of our property, with my sister, to keep her out from under my uncle’s eyes. I did not trust him not to hurt her if provoked. There were gunshots, in the woods - presumably hunters. They frightened her, and she ran into the trees.”

Will’s stomach sunk, as he started to get an idea where the story was going. 

“I went after her, but got lost quickly. I have no idea how long I was there before they found me. It was winter, and there was snow, and I was freezing. The deserter soldiers presented themselves to me as military rescuers, and invited me to the wood lodge they’d appropriated, claiming they’d take over my search. They were eating a stew when I entered, and one of the men offered me a bowl. I remember thinking he was very kind, to share with me when he was so clearly starving.” Hannibal’s shoulders started a slow climb as he began to curl inward on himself, ever so slightly, hunching over his work until his entire face was hidden from Will. “I ate it, while they left. To look for her, they told me. I sat in the building, comforted with their aid, and I  _ ate.”  _

A piece clicked into place, and Will sucked in a breath. “Oh my God,” he breathed, unable to hold it back, as Hannibal dropped further in on himself. 

“I don’t remember why I started looking through their things,” Hannibal said, voice the most unsteady Will had ever heard it - had ever imagined it could possibly _get_. “Maybe I was searching for a drink. They had a storage room, with wrapped meat shoved into packed snow.”

“Jesus Christ…”

“Even when I saw her, I couldn’t understand at first,” Hannibal murmured. “It took too long for me to put it together - the stew, the meat, the broth, it all came from the same kill.”

Hannibal’s cuts continued, uneven and almost desperate as the knife moved increasingly more aggressively through the flesh of the vegetable. Moving on instinct, Will shot his hand out, setting it over Hannibal’s to hold it still.

It tensed under his fingers, curling around the blade of his knife, clutching it like a lifeline. 

Empathy came to him unbidden. “Your cooking,” he murmured.

“I could never get the taste out of my mouth,” Hannibal confirmed. “A million recipes, but I’ve never managed to find one that outshines that pathetic little stew.”

“You were only  _ ten _ ,” Will recalled. “How did you kill them?”

Hannibal was shaking, beneath his touch, vulnerable in a way Will had never imagined he could be. He was not shaking with grief, though, Will realized: this was  _ disgust. _

Hannibal was disgusted with how he’d acted, then. 

“Poison,” Will realized. “You poisoned them.”

“I poisoned  _ her,”  _ Hannibal corrected. “My final act for my sister was her desecration.”

“You turned their crime into their death,” Will said. “There’s a poetry in that.”

“It was just,” Hannibal said. “No one would have blamed me. No one would have begrudged my choice. Deserter soldiers - they would have been hanged, even if they’d sought fair trial. But I didn’t care. I still don’t.”

“You didn’t kill them for justice,” Will murmured. “You killed for revenge.”

Hannibal raised his eyes back up, looking into Will’s, their faces inches from each other as they both hunched over their joined hands on the counter between them. 

“You couldn’t get the taste out of your mouth,” Will echoed. “There was no going back. No one could take you any further down than you’d already gone.”

“There were seven of them,” Hannibal told Will, voice slowly evening back out. “I stayed, letting them think they’d fooled me, for the sheer joy of watching them die.”

“What…” Will swallowed, and tried again. “What was her name?”

Hannibal’s eyes dropped a hair, going distant as they looked through Will to something unseen.

“Mischa,” he breathed. “Her name was Mischa.” 

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last chap was short so...double upload

Will let a few moments pass in silence before the closeness and emotional vulnerability of their stance started to both him, and looked down, turning his attention to the chopped (and somewhat mutilated, depending) vegetables. “What were you cooking?”

Will heard Hannibal let out a breath, and his hand moved out from under Will’s own, knife moving to trim the uneven eggplant slices into more presentable pieces. “Tacheen,” Hannibal said, voice returning to the more even tone it had started the story with, inching closer to his normal speech with each word. “It’s a Persian dish, and typically rather simple. I’m going through recipes I haven’t tried in a while, and seeing if I want to resurrect any old flavors for the dinner party.” He shook his head, nudging scraps of eggplant he apparently deemed unsalvageable to the side. “Of course, that is presuming our cause for celebration is still valid?”

Will looked at him, confused, before catching on. “Weirdly enough,” Will said, “I haven’t actually changed my opinion of you all that much.”

Hannibal managed to look amused, even if it was pinned under layers of open confusion. “No?”

“You’ve been through a lot,” Will said. “I know that, now. It doesn’t actually affect the kind of person you are, now.” 

The amusement on the man’s face turned almost wry. “I tell you in great detail the pleasure I took in the deaths of seven men, and this changes your opinion of me only slightly? Should I be concerned the picture I paint with my normal behavior?”

“I may not be the professional, Dr. Lecter,” Will said, “but you’re not exactly a textbook example of a well-adjusted man.”

“A steady career, a nice home, social status- is that not the usual mold for a standard man?”

Will raised an eyebrow. “You sharpen pencils with scalpels and then draw dead people.”

“Ah,” Hannibal said. “You  _ did  _ get to those sketches. You only mentioned the ones of you, so I wasn’t certain.”

“I didn’t, actually,” Will said. “But when I had Lounds’ website pulled up, you were looking pretty closely at the picture. I figured you were probably memorizing details to sketch out later.”

“Perceptive,” Hannibal complimented. “I should be more cautious, should you discover all my secrets.”

“I’m not convinced that isn’t your goal, honestly.” Will reached out, ambitious, and snatched up a piece of discarded eggplant, popping it into his mouth - taking a personal satisfaction in the affronted look from Hannibal the action awarded him. “I told you when we met I didn’t find you that interesting, and I’m starting to think you took that as a personal challenge.”

“And?” Hannibal prompted, all while scraping the rejected vegetable pieces onto his knife’s blade so he could dump them into his trash before Will rescued any others. “Have I changed your mind?”

“Not really.”   
Hannibal looked at him, eyebrows high. “No?”

Will laughed, feeling strangely light: for once, he was not the one who had showed his hand, and it was a relief to meet Hannibal on even ground. “The version of you I met at the FBI was straightforward and simple. Psychiatrist, intellectual, wealthy and well-off and just a bit pretentious.”

“I stand ready for a contradiction.”

Will snorted. “That wasn’t you. It was the person you wanted Jack to think you were.”

“Jack?” Hannibal questioned. “Not you?”   
“No,” Will said. “You made that clear when you showed up at my house. You have...masks. Faces you present to different people to make them think you’re who they need you to be. But with me, you just...couldn’t decide.”

“I see,” Hannibal said. “You think I struggled to identify your needs?”

“You struggled to identify  _ which  _ need you wanted to go after,” Will corrected. “I think you eventually settled on my self-inflicted isolation, judging by how eager you were for me to call you a friend.”

“Me going after your loneliness presents a uniquely romantic narrative for our current cover story,” Hannibal mused.

Will laughed again, hearty and real in a way he rarely managed, and was surprised when Hannibal joined him - softer, but still sincere. 

“I shall attempt to rescue my attempts at dinner,” Hannibal said, when their laughter tapered off. “Are you returning home, or staying the night?”

His dogs would have to forgive him, but it was hardly a choice at all.

  
  
  
  


Will woke on Sunday morning to his phone ringing, Jim Morrison’s voice coaxing him awake in a somewhat surreal experience. 

He fumbled for the phone, and simply answered it, not really bothering to look at the contact. Only a handful of people ever called him, anyway, and none of them were people he could easily get away with ignoring. 

“Hello?” he practically grunted into the speaker, the tail end of the greeting getting caught in the beginnings of a yawn.

“Late night?” Beverly Katz’s voice crackled through the phone line to him. “I heard a rumor Price infected you.”

Will blinked, wondering if that would have made sense to him if he was more awake, or if Beverly was always a mystery. “What?”

“Gay cooties,” she said. “Price spends all day making moon eyes at Zeller, and now you’ve got a hot doctor boyfriend, or something.”   
Will wasn’t sure if he was more confused by the sudden outing of Jimmy Price to him or the fact that Beverly had honestly called him about his relationship status. 

Like he’d told Hannibal, he didn’t really consider himself to have any  _ friends -  _ not the sort who would call you up to chat about your love life, anyway.

“The FBI needs to step up their information network,” he informed Beverly. “I told Alana a week ago.” 

“Shit, for real?!” Beverly’s voice doubled in volume, and Will winced at the crackle of speaker static that resulted. “I totally thought you were gonna tell me I was full of it. Damn, I’m gonna owe Zeller twenty bucks.” 

Will grimaced. “That unbelievable, huh?”

“That you and Lecter would hook up? Yeah.” 

Will was ready to wrap up the phone call, when he was silenced by Beverly’s next statement.

“I mean, everybody knew Lecter was desperately in love with you,” she said, entirely casually, like her words didn’t send Will’s stomach into his throat _.  _ “I just thought you’d be oblivious until you went off and had nice healthy hetero babies and left poor old Lecter sobbing into a gourmet dessert.” 

“I…” Will started, and then paused, letting a long moment pass. “I genuinely don’t know how to respond to that,” he admitted, finally. “Is there a reason you called me?”

“Yep!” she said, popping the  _ p.  _ “Crawford has a stick so far up his ass it’s coming out his mouth, and won’t let us drag you into a crime scene, but he never actually formally revoked your clearance or anything. So,  _ technically _ , if I call you for an ‘anonymous’ consult, he can’t say shit.” 

Will straightened. “You want my help on a case?”

“God, please,” she said. “This Ripper victim’s case is driving me nuts. Unless he’s a Monty Python fan, I can’t figure out what the fuck the berries are supposed to be there for.”

“I can’t help you much, there,” Will told her. “I don’t know anything about plants. I can tell you what I came up with, though, if that helps?”

She agreed readily, and Will walked her through his analysis he’d come up with while looking through Lounds’ blog.

By the time the call ended, Will had comfort in the knowledge that at least  _ someone  _ still valued his input on cases, questionable sanity aside, and that he might actually have more friends than he thought. 

  
  
  
  
  


“So Miss Katz still believes in you, even if Jack does not,” Hannibal summarized, when Will caught him up on the morning call over breakfast. 

“You don’t have to say ‘I told you so,’” Will said. 

“I would never,” Hannibal denied, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I don’t believe it is necessary to state what is already well known.”

Will shot him a look, watching the doctor take a bite of his breakfast with a cheeky, smug look creeping across his face.

The day before must have broken a wall between them Will hadn’t even really been aware of, because Hannibal was finally letting him see the bits of him that were  _ real.  _

Unfortunately, most of those bits so far were his sense of humor, which apparently consisted solely of bad one-liners. 

“She also said something else,” Will said, debating how best to go about mentioning it. “Apparently…”

He looked up, meeting Hannibal’s stare for a moment, and suddenly just...couldn’t. Couldn’t mention Beverly’s reference to Hannibal’s apparent crush on him, or the fact that it was universally agreed upon by everyone who wasn’t Will.

“...Apparently there’s a betting pool,” Will finished, instead. “I kind of want to know who won.”

Hannibal raised his coffee mug, as though in a toast. “I’d say myself.”

Will’s back teeth clenched in an effort to keep the heat from rising to his cheeks. Hannibal really wasn’t making Beverly’s offhand comments any easier to ignore.

Thinking of the Hannibal he’d seen the day before, baring his heart to Will with the implication he’d never done it to anyone before, Will tried not to imagine what it would mean if she’d been right.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Good news, boys!” Beverly announced, opening the door to the lab with her foot, hands full of the cardboard drink carrier that held their three coffees. “We finally have something to go off of on the Ripper vic.”

“Please tell me it’s a confession letter, hand delivered by the Ripper himself,” Brian said. “I’m sick of looking at this guy’s handiwork.”

“Next best thing, I promise,” Beverly said, setting down the drink carrier on a mortuary table to distribute the drinks. “I called Graham.”

Brian froze in the middle of reaching for his coffee. “You... _ called  _ the guy Jack explicitly told us not to ask for help?”

“I didn’t hear that,” Jimmy said. “I’m not a part of this. You can deal with that fallout on your own, Katz, thank you.”

Beverly rolled her eyes. “He still has clearance, so I didn’t do anything illegal by calling him up. Besides, we’re just using his input to know where to look. We’re only gonna give Crawford what we find ourselves, so he never even has to know.” She narrowed her eyes at them. “ _ Right,  _ boys?”

“ _ No hablo inglés, _ ” Brian said, raising his hands in the air like a surrender. “ _ No escuché nada _ .” 

“What he said,” Jimmy echoed. “But in English, because I’m the boring monolingual one here, thank you.” 

“No worries,” Beverly said. “Zeller’s Spanish is high school level garbage and I have to bullshit through calls with my grandmother because nobody actually ever taught me Korean. Sticking to English is safest, thanks.” 

“Not when you’re trying to stay out of Jack’s  _ murder path _ ,” Brian countered. “Now isn’t a good time to test him, considering he acts like he’s about ten seconds away from setting the whole building on fire at any given point.” 

“Please,” Jimmy said. “Most of that is probably Lecter and Graham hooking up.”

Brian made a disgusted noise. “Don’t remind me.”

Beverly stuck her tongue out at him. “Don’t be jealous.”

“Who am I jealous of?” Brian asked. “The guy dating his own psychiatrist, or the psychiatrist dating his crazy ass patient?”

Beverly responded with a rude gesture. “Both of them, because they can actually get laid.”

“I just threw up in my mouth a little,” he told her. “Just, for reference.”

“I, for one, think it’s great,” Jimmy cut in. “If I had to watch Lecter’s heart eyes too much longer I was gonna ask him out myself.”

“You would have gotten shut down so hard,” Beverly said. “He’s so out of your league.”

“He’s dating  _ Graham,”  _ Brian reminded them. “He clearly doesn’t have standards.”

“Will’s kinda hot,” Beverly argued. 

“Okay, yeah,” Brian shook his head feverently. “I’m definitely gonna puke now. I’m gonna go over here, and look at samples of skin tissue from a dead woman, because that is  _ less gross  _ than this conversation.”

“What a baby,” Beverly muttered to Jimmy, as Brian retreated. 

Jimmy shook his head, taking a sip of his coffee. After a moment of watching their mutual friend, he turned to the woman, asking, “Who do you think tops?”

Beverly choked on her coffee, at the same time Brian made an exaggerated retching noise across the lab. 

She loved her team, honestly.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Revelations, cont.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another short chappie to get an important plot point rollin ;)  
> three updates in 24 hours? geez who am i and what have i done with the real spicyreyes

Sunday passed mostly in companionable silence, Will borrowing books from Hannibal’s extensive library to read through while the man alternated between digging through recipes - presumably planning his dinner party - and sitting across from Will with his sketchbook, working on some undetermined masterpiece.

Their peaceful coexistence was strange to Will, a man who was used to only the company of dogs and the demons of his own mind. Moreso that it was  _ Hannibal,  _ who only a week prior had been Will’s last resort, the place he turned when he could trust nothing else. 

Now, Will had been entrusted with a secret Hannibal had likely never shared with anyone, and that made them...not quite  _ equals,  _ but closer than they were. 

Hannibal struggled at all times to keep people at a distance, only showing them as much as he wanted them to see. Will had managed to break through a section of that wall, and the rest was crumbling down slowly to join it. 

Will had the feeling he’d only scratched the surface of Hannibal Lecter, and there was far more to discover, beyond the tragedies of his childhood. The man had an endless depth to him, and Will found himself oddly excited by the prospect.

Hannibal’s interest in him, flawed and fractured as he was, had never made sense to Will. Now, though, he imagined he had an idea of what it was like - only instead of Hannibal’s professional curiosity, Will had the desperate need to bring them down to the same level. The idea of facing Hannibal Lecter as a complete equal was...intoxicating. 

He had expected Hannibal to resist, maintain their power imbalance as it was, but apparently the doctor had been sincere when he claimed Will’s independence was something he preferred. That, or he had some other motive Will hadn’t stumbled across yet.

_ I mean, everybody knew Lecter was desperately in love with you. _

Will shook his head, trying to clear the thought, and couldn’t help sneaking his eyes up, looking to Hannibal curiously.

People tended to see what they wanted to see, and memories were easily distorted to fit the beliefs of their owner. That had to be the case here, Beverly’s eagerness to support Will’s romantic endeavors painting Hannibal’s interest in him in a new light. 

Still… 

A part of Will couldn’t help taking the theory, and running with it. Hannibal’s suggestions to keep him in the field were unorthodox at best, and he’d been quick to agree to participate. Will remembered thinking the man was surprisingly eager to accept, but he’d shrugged it off as another experiment in the understanding of Will Graham. 

What if it wasn’t, though? Will had no real idea how the opposing forces of Hannibal Lecter’s false identity and his real one were divided. If he’d been staging an interest in Will, that could have been his cover for why he was so obviously hyper-fixated on figuring him out. 

If it  _ wasn’t  _ staged, though. If an interest in Will was something Hannibal genuinely had, how would he know?

It would be easy to find out. Will knew targeted empathy, he knew psychological evaluation. He could find Hannibal’s motives if he knew where to look.

He did not  _ want  _ to look.

There was no answer there that Will wanted. To find that there was nothing there would make him feel ridiculous for having even entertained such an idea, and to find there  _ was… _

Will honestly wasn’t even sure how he’d respond to that. It raised a stirring in his chest that was not quite excitement and not quite anxiety, but some undeterminable mix of the two.

Will despised when people had a professional interest in him, hating being subjected to study under a microscope that could follow him anywhere.  _ Personal  _ interest, though, he’d never experienced.

Would it be better, or worse, if the person watching him was doing so for the sake of witnessing Will Graham, rather than picking him apart?

Hannibal must have felt Will’s eyes on him, because he raised his own, giving a faint smile. He said nothing, pencil continuing to sweep across his paper, the light scratches filling the air as a soothing white noise. 

The eyes resting on his face were a bit too sharp to be just returning his own staring. “Are you drawing me again?”   
“You are a fascinating subject,” Hannibal replied, rather than an outright confirmation, eyes dropping back to his paper. “Are you aware that, with the exception of a deviated septum, your face is almost entirely symmetrical?”

Will blinked, taken aback by the observation. “I...wasn’t. I have a deviated septum?”   
Hannibal glanced up again, this look more light-humored. “Most likely.”

Will brought a hand up to his nose, pressing against the bridge of it. “I broke my nose when I was a cop,” he said. “...A couple times. I wouldn’t be surprised if I screwed it up permanently.” 

“It doesn’t seem to have affected your health at all,” Hannibal said. 

Then, pencil dragging sharp across his paper, he  _ continued. _

“You don’t snore, at least.”

Will fumbled the book in his hands. “What? Why do you-...?”

Hannibal raised his eyes, giving Will a faint smile. “You have been sleeping in my house for a week, Will.” 

“In your  _ guest room,”  _ Will defended, weakly. “Don’t tell me your ears are as good as your nose?”

Hannibal just kept smiling.

“Oh, my God,” he breathed. “You’re a dog. You’re my newest stray dog. How did I not see that?”

Hannibal laughed, lightly. “I shall take it as a compliment to be included in your pack.”

“Do you have  _ any  _ normal senses?” Will asked. 

“Just taste. My sense of touch is dull,” Hannibal admitted. “And my eyesight can be poor, at times - usually in the early morning and late evening, when my eyes are most tired. I have glasses, but I confess I don’t wear them near as much as I should.”

Will was overtaken by the mental image of Hannibal in  _ glasses _ , and shifted on the couch, bringing the book up to cover the lower half of his face. 

The idea was almost  _ cute,  _ God help him. 

Hannibal apparently took pity on him, because he dropped it, instead setting aside his pencil and spinning his sketchbook around to show Will his finished product. 

Will’s hands dropped back down to his waist, relaxing their grip on the book as he stared in a quiet, shocked awe.

It was him, after all, but not him sitting on the chair like he’d thought. It was a drawing that must have been Will the day before, during their confrontation. The image of the Will Graham that had stood inches from Hannibal’s face, and looked dead into his eyes. 

At the bottom of the drawing, he could see his hand, resting over the one that belonged to the unpictured Hannibal. The visibly tensed tendons of Hannibal’s hand were a stark contrast to the relaxed, gentle touch of Will’s, even though Will was fairly certain he had been just as tense in the actual moment. 

_ This is what Hannibal saw,  _ he realized. Not Will desperately trying to put the lid back on Pandora’s box, but someone coming to help, someone welcoming the demons inside as his own. 

He looked over the surface of the paper, taking in the earnest expression on his own face, and finally settling on the drawing’s eyes. 

Piercing, open, honest. There was nothing there but empathy, ready to listen and take on whatever burdens Hannibal was preparing to share.

This was Will Graham through the eyes of a man who loved him.

_...Oh.  _

“It’s...” Will started, then stopped, clearing his throat. “You’re very good. I try to avoid eye contact with mirrors, but I’m fairly sure you got my face exactly.”

Hannibal chuckled, turning the sketchbook back around and flipping the page, moving past the drawing like it was entirely unimportant. Which, Will supposed, it  _ was,  _ for Hannibal. Hannibal had notebooks full of his drawings, ones he’d confessed to using to decompress. For him, this was his therapy, putting his thoughts and feelings onto paper and then simply setting them aside. He gave them physical form so that he did not have to carry them anymore. 

It struck Will as unfair, that this man could turn his life inside out and bring his world grinding to a halt and then just...turn the page, carry on, as though it were nothing in particular. Nothing noteworthy _ ,  _ nothing spectacular. 

_ He loves you,  _ Will’s empathy screamed to him, and he could feel it like an oppressive air.

He set his book aside, standing on shaky legs, and retreated silently to the guest room.

_ You looked, and looked, and kept looking. _

_ You saw, and you wanted to see more. _

_ See? _

He’d dug through Hannibal’s personality and past, looking for secrets. He’d struggled to piece together who the man really was under layers of false pretenses and careful disguises.

_ See? _

He’d desperately clung to the idea he could parse Hannibal out, bring them down to even ground. He’d sunk bloodied nails into the clay figure Hannibal built to hide in, and clawed it apart, digging for even the faintest glimmer of truth. 

_ See?  _

He saw. Oh, he saw, and it may not have been  _ everything _ , but it was so _ much.  _

_ See? _

Hannibal loved him. Hannibal genuinely loved him, if in a twisted and uncertain way. 

_ See?  _

He saw, but...did he  _ accept?  _

He didn’t know.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, some results.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote a porny alternate ending to the kitchen confrontation if anyone is interested in mindless filth: [bite](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14344050)

Will ended up spending Sunday evening mostly in hiding, coming out to eat dinner in uncomfortable silence. Whatever Hannibal thought was wrong, he didn’t press, and Will was grateful.

Just before heading to bed, Will asked if Hannibal had the sleeping medications from the first night he had stayed. If he was going to get any rest at all, he needed them. 

Hannibal hadn’t asked, just smiled like he understood and passed over two tablets.

Will wondered if the man thought it was based on their conversation from the day before. He then wondered what it said about him, that soft and genuine emotions were more jarring to him than tales of gruesome murder. 

Maybe Jack had a point, taking him off of active cases for a while. They were clearly affecting his ability to function semi-normally, something he’d struggled with doing already enough on his own. 

He turned in, still managing to stay awake and stare at the ceiling for what must have neared an hour before he finally gave in to the medication’s pull and fell into a dreamless, restless sleep. 

  
  
  
  


Hannibal started Will off with an injected sedative, before adding his IV, that night. The man was clearly just barely unconscious, and him waking up would do Hannibal no favors. For now, Will believed to have discovered the full extent of Hannibal’s dark places, and Hannibal would let some time pass before he corrected the assumption. 

Showing Will his sketch had visibly upset him, and Hannibal presumed it had to do with the look he’d captured on the man’s face: open, eager, accepting. 

Hannibal had put down in graphite a tangible memory of how undisturbed Will had been with the revelation that he had blood on his hands.

If Will was bothered by how easily he accepted Hannibal’s revelations, he’d need to be certain to rid him of that reluctance by the time the man stumbled upon the rest of the truth. 

Carefully, he measured out a slightly higher dose of the medication for the IV than usual.

He didn’t have time to ease Will through the treatment any longer. It was time for a catalyst. 

  
  
  
  
  


“Does anyone want to explain to me,” Jack called, strolling through the doors of the FBI’s main crime lab. “Why exactly you want to swab this woman in search of _perfumes?”_

“She’d been dead for days,” Beverly offered. “And none of those flowers really smell that strong. He sprayed her with something.” 

“And how does that help us?”

Beverly shrugged. “It was that, or we run the third full body sweep for DNA. Even if we don’t find anything that makes sense to us-...”

“Please don’t,” Jimmy muttered. 

“...I bet you Graham could make something out of it.”

Jimmy and Brian looked to each other, clear exasperation in both their faces at Beverly’s utter lack of self-preservation.

“Graham is  _ benched,”  _ Jack reminded her. “We’re not calling him in on this, or anything, until we know he can handle it. You should understand that - you were there the last time, weren’t you?”

“You weren’t paying attention, were you?”

Jack stared at Beverly, incredulous. “Excuse me?”

“The mirror Graham punched?” Beverly said. “It was a medicine cabinet. There were prescription sleeping meds inside, tons of em, under all sorts of fake names. Those helped us track down the Dollmaker’s real identity. Graham’s got a few screws loose, but even when he’s three sheets to the wind, he’s only ever helpful.” 

Jack narrowed his eyes at her. “He contaminated a crime scene, and hurt himself in the process. I can’t risk him doing that again.”

“So bring in his boyfriend,” Beverly said. “Lecter won’t let him do anything stupid.”

Jack’s face shifted ever so slightly toward disgust. “I’m not going to make Dr. Lecter babysit Will so that we can throw him into more cases.”

Beverly stared at him, incredulous. “That’s what you’ve been doing for  _ months.”  _

The two stared each other down, neither willing to relent. 

“...Fine,” Jack huffed out. “Let Graham take a look. But he’s not going to any crime scenes, got it? He helps from this room or not at all.” 

“Thank God,” Beverly sighed out. 

“If he breaks,” Jack warned, “Remember you were the one who pushed this.”

“He’ll be fine,” Beverly returned. “Have some faith.”

Jack shook his head, and left the room, not saying another word.

The two men left in the lab knew how he felt - faith wasn’t easy when the evidence was against you.

  
  
  
  


Will was tempted to formally apologize to his classes for the number of times he faltered mid-lecture, distracted by movement in his doorway.

At least the past week had given him mostly  _ real  _ visitors, and not shadows or phantoms conjured by his neurosis. 

This visit was twice as relieving, because it was not Alana or Jack coming to gift him with more poorly veiled judgement or bad news, nor Hannibal to send him back into his confusing self-reflective spiral. Instead, Beverly Katz was leaned against the doorframe, watching him with a satisfied smirk on her face.

_ She made progress,  _ Will guessed, recalling giving her information for the Ripper case. Why she would come to share, he couldn’t say, even if she clearly didn’t care much for Jack’s sidelining him. Still, he appreciated her attempting to keep him in the loop. 

At the very least, she’d provide a decent distraction. 

“Hey,” he greeted, when his class was filtering out and he could actually acknowledge her. “Did you need something?”

“You,” she replied. “You wanna come look at a corpse for a while?”

Will blinked, baffled. “I’m still-...”   
“Banned from crime scenes,” Beverly finished. “But I got Jack to let up a little. You can come to the lab whenever, you just can’t help us anywhere else.”   
If Will were the type for it, he’d hug her. As it was, he settled for a relieved sigh and a grateful, “Thank you. You don’t know how badly I needed something to do.”

“I have an idea,” she replied, wry amusement in her voice. “If it’s half as bad as we needed new eyes on this, we’ll all be happy.” 

“If you want, I can come by after my last class,” Will offered.

“That’s perfect,” she agreed. “I’ll see you then, alright?”

Will nodded, watching her turn and leave the room.

He had the sinking feeling that she probably had an ulterior motive, dragging him in like this, but he really didn’t have much of a choice but to go with it. 

Nothing he could do right now, anyway.

  
  
  
  


Will hadn’t seen a dead body in person for over a week, and it bothered him that less than ten full days still seemed like a lot to him. Walking into the lab was like an out of body experience, like he was watching himself enter the space from someone else’s eyes. 

Which, honestly, could have been him empathizing, because Brian Zeller looked to be his standard level of put out that Will was in his domain yet again. What he’d done in particular to make the man hate him, he couldn’t say, not knowing didn’t mean not understanding. If Will had someone waltzing through his place of work, spacing out over dead bodies and then undermining his theories, he probably wouldn’t be terribly fond of them either.

“Well, look who it is,” Jimmy announced as he entered. “Congrats on the boyfriend.”

Will wasn’t sure what response he was expected to give there, so he opted for ignoring Price completely, looking to Beverly instead. 

The woman rescued him without pause. “File’s on that table, vic is here, all our stuff is still out. Do your thing, Sixth Sense.”

Will shot her a slightly offended look at the reference, before he followed her directions, and started looking around. 

“What was she missing?” Will asked, flipping through the autopsy report.

“Her thymus,” Jimmy said. “And her pancreas.”

“He took two?”

Jimmy shrugged. “You’re the expert on this guy, not me. Maybe he got greedy.”

Will frowned, looking back to the woman’s body, glancing over her again. “What’s special about you?” he murmured, considering.

“Oh, good, he’s talking to himself,” Will heard Brian mutter. “That’s comforting.”

Will figured it was best to ignore him, but...he really didn’t have the patience. 

“He takes one organ from every victim,” Will said. “ _ One.  _ Something was different, here.” 

“Maybe he changed his mind?” Beverly suggested. “Wanted something other than what he started off taking?”

He squinted at her, skeptical. “If he changed his mind, why not put the first one back? Besides, he’s a perfectionist. He wouldn’t-...oh.”

Of course.

“You remember what I said, right?” Will asked Beverly. “That he’s trying to win over someone else? He’s aiming for a partner. He took two because there are two of them now. A trophy for each.”

The new theory didn’t feel one hundred percent certain, but it made more sense than anything else Will could come up with. 

“Great,” Jimmy breathed out. “So now we have to find two freaks, instead of just one.”   
“Maybe working together will make them sloppy,” Beverly said, hopefully. “Or maybe the one he’s trying to win over will just kill him and do us all a favor.”

Will snorted. “He wouldn’t mind,” he said. “The Ripper, he’s...enamored. Whoever he’s after, this is how he’s  _ courting _ them. He wants their attention, however he gets it.” 

“You sure you’re not projecting your own ‘romance’ onto him?”

Will shot an annoyed look to Brian. “Who would be the Ripper, in this scenario, Zeller? Me or Hannibal?”

Brian rolled his eyes. “Okay, you’ve got a point. Lecter’s pretty straight-laced, even if you’re on the fence.”   
“The joke is too easy,” Jimmy said, looking to Beverly. “He really just set me up for it, and I’m not taking it.” 

Will wondered, briefly, if this was the universe punishing him for conspiring with known killers. Maybe it was why Jack had agreed to let him help this way - he’d have to be truly desperate to try and work with these three around. Beverly was kind, but loud and abrasive, while Jimmy was nosy and Brian was antagonistic. Getting much done around them would be a challenge. 

Still, it was better than nothing. 

“Hey, speaking of you beau-...”   
Will really,  _ really  _ should have expected that. 

“Please tell me he asked you out in a really over the top way,” Jimmy said. “That guy is so intense, he had to do something theatrical, right?”

Will blinked at him, and racked his brain, trying to recall what story he’d given Alana. He remember he’d based it off his  _ actual  _ move on Alana, marketing it as a more successful second try, and answered accordingly. “He didn’t ask me out at all,” he said. “Not that it’s your business.” 

“What?” Beverly exclaimed, leaning across the table. “Okay, you have to give details now.  _ You _ seriously asked  _ him _ out? I was thinking you were just too awkward to turn him down.” 

“Can we focus on the dead woman?” Brian asked.

“Shut up, Zeller,” Beverly told him. “If we run into any more brick walls on this case  _ I’m  _ gonna be the one getting banned from it, and this is my actual salaried job. Let me decompress.” To Will, she prompted, “Details. What happened?”

Will shifted back, uncomfortable. 

“It’s really best to just answer,” Jimmy told him, in a mock-whisper. “She’s relentless.”

“Jack kicked me out, and I went to see Hannibal,” Will reluctantly offered. “And now we’re dating. That’s all I’m telling you.”

“So you fucked,” Beverly guessed.

Will flushed immediately, sputtering.

“Ha! That’s gold, there.” She reached out, patting his shoulder in a slightly sarcastic ‘comfort’ gesture. “I’ll leave you alone, I promise. It’s just wild to me that you actually liked him, too. I figured you hated him, honestly.”

Will frowned. “I never hated Hannibal,” he defended. “When I met him I didn’t like him, but I didn’t  _ hate  _ him. I just don’t like psychiatrists.”

“Bullshit,” Jimmy sang out, holding a finger up like he was marking his interjection. “You act like Alana is a goddess on earth and you’re boning Lecter. You don’t like people that think you’re crazy, profession aside.” 

Well, that was fair, really. 

“And anyway,” Will continued, unable to stop himself from chasing the line of questioning that had been bothering him. “What do you mean with all the comments about him liking me? I never noticed anything.”

Beverly stared at him, incredulous. “You seriously didn’t put it together at all? He followed you around like a lost puppy, he looked at you like you hung the moon, and he was practically drooling every time you did something clever. He was so hung up on you, it was almost embarrassing.” 

Will shifted his weight between his feet, feeling a tense sort of anxiety building in him again. Their observations alone could be dismissed as their memories distorting under their newfound revelations, but…

But combined with Will’s realization from the day before, that was looking a lot less likely. 

“You okay, Graham?” Beverly asked. “You look like you’re gonna pass out.”

Will looked down at the body on the table, trying to reorient himself, and then looked back up-...

...Beverly was gone.

Will’s breath caught in his throat, as he stumbled back a step, nearly tripping down the shallow stairs that led up to Hannibal’s front door.

_ I’m in Baltimore,  _ he realized.  _ I was at the BAU and now I’m in Baltimore, and I don’t remember coming here.  _

He’d  _ blinked  _ and ended up somehow ended up a ninety minute drive away from where he’d been. 

The world began to swim as Will breathing came faster and harsher, the house in front of him seeming to bear down oppressively on him, its towering form becoming a threatening presence instead of the comfort it had been.

His last conscious observation before he blacked out was the sound of Hannibal’s front door opening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WINKS


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal may have made a mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is another short chapter and its fuckin GAY

Hannibal had about half a second to take in Will’s anxious expression and rapid breathing before the hyperventilation escalated into a full seizure, the man going limp. He moved quickly, catching him and moving him gently backward, easing him to the floor just inside of his house so that he could shut the door. He then rolled Will onto his side, placing one of his hands gently between his trembling head and the ground it kept threatening to strike against, and began to count.

He reached sixty before he worried - Will had been hyperventilating, when he opened the door. If he had a convulsive seizure that lasted _too_ long, the struggle to get oxygen would combine with his already thinned lung capacity and lead to a high risk of suffocation.

“If I have to give you Diazepam,” Hannibal murmured to the convulsing man in his arms, “I will be very disappointed.”

Will’s jaw shook, and Hannibal eased his hand down just in time to have Will bite down on it instead of on his own tongue. Getting a mouthful of Hannibal’s blood was probably unpleasant, and Will would likely be furious when he found out he’d interfered in a way that damaged himself, but the alternative had been to risk Will biting into his own tongue, possibly biting the tip of it off with the force his jaw had closed with.

The tremors began to ease, spacing out more and more until Will was no longer jerking, just slightly shaking. Hannibal took the opportunity to stand, heading to the closest bathroom to retrieve a first aid kit.

He was just finishing wrapping his hand in gauze when he heard a whimper rise from the main hall.

Good. He was awake.

Hannibal headed back into the hall, kneeling next to Will again. “Are you alright?” he asked, keeping his voice low in case there was any lingering headache or confusion.

He was met with a bleary-eyed, blank stare, followed by a few slow blinks.

Not fully aware yet, then. He tapped Will’s nose with one finger, then pulled it back to hold it a bit in front of his face, waiting for Will’s eyes to shift to follow it. When they appeared to focus, he ran his hand through Will’s hair, petting the curls gently.

“You have hurt yourself rather badly,” he commented, keeping his tone light and his statements neutral, unsure of how much Will was actually aware. He moved forward, tucking his arms beneath the man’s back and knees, lifting him smoothly off the ground to carry him into the house.

Hannibal’s bedroom and guest room were both upstairs, and he wasn’t about to move a person with limited awareness up to a different altitude. Instead, he headed to his living room, laying Will down on the couch.

He did his finger test again, humming to himself as Will once again barely managed to respond.

Confident the man would not be aware enough for the next few minutes to need anything urgently, Hannibal went about gathering a few blankets and pillows, which he brought back to the living room to set up a makeshift bed around Will.

“H..hnnb?”

Hannibal moved from his bed-making to lean over Will. “Have you returned to me, Will?”

Will’s eyes were half-lidded, and when he spoke he did so out of only the side of his mouth. “Can’t…”

“Ah,” Hannibal caught on. “Likely a case Todd’s paralysis. You had a seizure, but your body is reacting as though it were a stroke. It should pass.”

“ _Hh_...lon..?”

“How long?” Hannibal guessed. “Uncertain. Most cases resolve in about twelve hours, I believe, but there have been cases that spanned multiple days. A first seizure like this is hard to predict, because your body isn’t used to the shock. It hasn’t adapted a process for dealing with it. Or were you asking how long you’ve been here, perhaps?” He took the shifting of Will’s few responsive facial muscles for a _yes_. “Not long at all. Your seizure was around three minutes long, by my count, and you were semi-conscious for about five minutes afterwards.”

Will was still for a moment, and then his head lolled, his shoulder shifting against the side of the couch as he made a clear attempt to look around.

“Careful,” Hannibal warned. “You’re in my living room, on the couch. Taking you up the stairs was unnecessary movement, so I thought it best to let you rest down here for now.” He reached out, tapping his fingers against Will’s face, feeling along the muscles that he hadn’t seen move yet. “Can you feel that?”

 _“Mm,"_ Will confirmed. His jaw worked for a moment, apparently warming up to start moving again, before Will attempted to speak properly. “‘M ti….tide. Tired. Sore.” He enunciated each syllable of the last two attempts at words individually, forcing himself to speak clearly regardless of his body’s wishes.

“I’m not surprised,” Hannibal replied. “You had a grand mal convulsive seizure. Your body has to recover from that.”

“Lost time,” Will murmured, voice evening out, the slurring turning to more of a tired drawl than a muscle control issue. “I don’t remember coming here.”

Hannibal blinked down at him, stunned.

His symptoms appearing in reverse was something Hannibal had expected, but he’d been unaware the infection had gotten bad enough for Will to start having dissociative episodes like that, where he was fully functioning but entirely unaware.

The fact that he’d had such an extreme reaction…

Oh, Hannibal was an _idiot._

Will Graham was not neurotypical, even if most of his outstanding psychiatric issues were a result of his encephalitis. His nerve system was likely abnormal, which means his treatment should have been adjusted by a doctor with full awareness of his unique health systems. Strong as it was, Hannibal’s nose was not quite an MRI machine. He only knew what he’d taken the time to notice. He had no real knowledge of Will’s medical history or particular physical fitness.

He had no way of apologizing for it without giving himself away, but he was almost certain that he’d overdosed Will on his antiviral medications. Acyclovir could cause seizures in rare cases at _normal_ doses, and he’d pushed the dosage to the farthest limit of normal. It _should_ have still been safe, but he should have also known better.

“I apologize, Will,” Hannibal told him, unable to keep the genuine disgust at himself from his voice even as he scrounged for a lie to cover himself. “I believe the sleeping medication I gave you last night might have triggered an allergic reaction.”

“Huh,” Will grunted, then shifted again, working his jaw in a full circle as his facial muscles apparently started responding again. “That explains why I felt like shit.”

Hannibal’s back teeth grit together, frustration boiling in him at the thought he’d made such a major mistake.

“Hey,” Will called, and then shifted the leg of his more responsive side to nudge Hannibal with his knee. “Quit freaking out. I’m fine. Honestly, the sleep was probably worth it.”

Hannibal huffed out a disbelieving laugh. “You were asphyxiating,” he told the man. “You could have sustained permanent brain damage.”

Apparently indifferent to the risks of the action, Will used his restored muscle control to prop himself up, so that his head was closer to level with Hannibal. “Somehow, I doubt you would have let that happen.”

“No man is without limit,” Hannibal murmured. “There is only so much I can do.”

“ _Hannibal,”_ Will said. “I’m _okay._ You didn't kill me. Just don’t give me any more sleeping meds, and we’re fine.”

The two men stared each other down for a long moment.

“Christ,” Will muttered. “You’re going to be hovering all night, aren’t you?”

“Preferably,” Hannibal confirmed. “I would rather not leave you unmonitored until I’m certain your system is clear of any potential toxins.”

Will slumped back against the pillows Hannibal had placed behind him. “Can we at least get off the couch?”

“Of course,” Hannibal conceded, and moved again, gathering Will back into his arms.

He made a distressed sound at being picked up, but did little actual protesting, instead just dropping his head against the side of Hannibal’s neck and quietly murmuring, “I might throw up.”

Hannibal laughed lightly in response. “I’ll be sure to fetch a wastebasket of some sort for you to have near the bed.”

“Bed?”

Hannibal reached the guest room door, and opened it with the hand of the arm under Will’s legs, since it was mostly free to move. He headed in and set the man on the bed, retreating to the ensuite bathroom to pluck the trash bag out of the small bin and bring the container to rest by the side of the headboard, just in case it was needed.

Will made a protesting sound as Hannibal fussed over him, pulling the blankets across him as though to tuck him in like a child.

“I’ll yell if I need you,” Will murmured. “You can calm down.”

Hannibal blinked. “Will, you misunderstand. I fully intend to stay.”

Will furrowed his brows in confusion, and Hannibal gestured to the reading chair on the other side of the room.

“Hannibal,” Will sighed, sounding heavily exasperated. “I’m _fine.”_

“I would prefer to be certain of that firsthand.”

This time, their staring contest was less assessing and more challenging, neither one wanting to back down from their stance.

Finally, Will gave a deep sigh, and sleeply tugged the corner of his blanket down. “You’re not sleeping on a chair. If you’re staying, lay down.”

Hannibal shook his head. “It is unnecessary-...”

“You staying is unnecessary. Go to _bed,_ Hannibal.”

Hannibal weighed his options.

If he sat in the chair, Will would likely stay awake trying to argue with him, and would be annoyed when he woke up. Alternately, he could wait for Will to fall asleep and then move, relying on his own habit of waking early to escape notice.

Decision made, he moved around the side of the bed, casually toeing off his shoes and carefully removing his waistcoat and shirt, folding each to set aside.

“Um.”

“If you are going to present options as conditions,” Hannibal told him, “you should be certain you are prepared for them to be accepted.”

Will’s eyes darted between Hannibal, still in the process of undressing for bed, and the ceiling. “I’ve just never seen you not in a suit, is all.”

“And you still should not,” Hannibal told him. “If you _rest.”_

For the third time, they locked eyes, facing off in a battle of will.

“You are getting better with eye contact, the more annoyed with me you become,” Hannibal observed. Without giving the other time to respond, he got into the bed.

Will let out a small huff. “I miss thinking you were a stuck up bastard.”

“You thought I was a stuck up bastard?”

Will hummed, then turned over, back to Hannibal. “Goodnight, Hannibal.”

Hannibal laughed softly at the jokingly petty act. “Goodnight, Will.”

  
  


It was a selfish choice he made, really, but Hannibal never did end up retreating to the chair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two things  
> one: hannibal's 'if i have to give you diazepam' comment at the beginning there was a super dumb joke thats. a reference to the fact that diazepam to stop seizures is administered rectally, and thats really not the context in which he wants to be putting things up will's ass  
> two: hannibal is PISSED at himself for fucking up and thats gonna have some Consequences


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Good morning, boys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this keeps getting gayer

When Will had offered to share his bed, he had done so with reasonable confidence that the suggestion would be dismissed as the ridiculous notion it was.

This, of course, assumed that Hannibal Lecter had a single ounce of sense, which - despite popular opinion - was clearly false. Either that, or the man simply had no self-preservation whatsoever, which went against every observation Will had ever made. 

It was hard to reason, then, why the doctor would have called Will’s bluff so casually, and even followed through. 

Will had waited, staring at a fixed spot on the wall and watching shadows move, until he’d finally given into the exhaustion that had followed his seizure and fell asleep. 

When he woke, he was surprised to still be in the position he’d started in, not sweat-coated and askew like usual. Doubly surprising was the fact that behind him, the mattress had the slightest dip in it. 

Hannibal was still there.

A glance at the nightstand to the tiny digital clock revealed it to be just after three in the morning, which would explain why the man had yet to leave him. 

However, judging by the soft and even breathing, he was  _ asleep,  _ which was...unexpected.

Will had been mostly certain Hannibal would move from the bed the second he was asleep, and had a suspicion the man would stay up to fuss over him instead of getting any decent rest. 

Apparently, he’d been wrong on both counts. 

As gently as he could, he turned over, trying to face Hannibal without stirring him awake accidentally. The man was propped up on two pillows, sitting up as though he were going to read in bed or something, except his eyes were closed and his chin was dropped down slightly with the weight of his relaxed head. Will was struck with the image of a horse, sleeping while standing, and had a moment to be amused at the comparison. He wondered if Hannibal always slept oddly, or if he’d just fallen asleep that way when trying  _ not  _ to sleep. 

Hannibal looked different in sleep. To say he looked peaceful or happy would be a vast exaggeration, but he looked...raw. Unfiltered. The masks had fallen away and he had no room for pretenses. This was a Hannibal with the puppet strings lying slack, and it was interesting to see what the man truly looked like without a false smile or tense cheeks. 

_ This man loves you,  _ Will’s mind reminded him, followed immediately by  _ but he almost killed you.  _

Hannibal was desperate to avoid vulnerability, but he’d fallen asleep next to Will. He was a perfectionist, but admitted his mistake when he realized it. 

He was false, but he was still, somehow, human. 

He had an urge, then, sudden and strange, and acted on it before he could think better of it. Tentatively, he lifted a hand from beneath the blankets, and gently rested it against Hannibal’s chest, feeling the heartbeat there. The steady beat - healthy, hardy, _human -_ was grounding, an anchor in the storm of his frazzled mental health, and he let that comfort guide him back into the warmth of sleep.

To his side, having stirred from his light doze at the touch, Hannibal revelled in his small victory. 

  
  
  
  
  


When Will woke the second time, Hannibal was absent.

He spared a brief moment to hope his hand had moved back away from the man in his sleep, or that Hannibal had shrugged it off as an unconscious movement, because he wasn’t sure how to explain his desire to verify that the man next to him was real and not some strange conjuration of a fractured mind.

Likely, he wouldn’t even manage to get a word out before Hannibal would just  _ know _ , in that uncanny way he always did. 

As though summoned by his thoughts, the door opened to reveal Hannibal himself, two lightly steaming mugs in hand. 

“Ah, you’re awake,” he observed, crossing the room to pass over one of the cups. “I was debating if I should wake you, or take the liberty of calling you out.”

“I will actually punch you,” Will informed him. “I didn’t get the chance to tell you yesterday, but Beverly let me back in the lab. If I miss work the day after I’m put on crime scene probation, I won’t be able to get anywhere near a case for the next  _ year _ .” 

“You were allowed to assist on a case?” Hannibal sat down on the edge of the bed, sipping his coffee as he waited for Will to elaborate.

Will shifted his feet to the side, out of Hannibal’s way, and tried to ignore their proximity. “Apparently they were getting frustrated on this Ripper kill, and Beverly managed to convince Jack to let me help as long as I didn’t go to any actual crime scenes.”

“Thus your choice of the word ‘probation,’” Hannibal mused. “You have not been cleared, but they are trusting you to know your own limits.” 

“Not really,” Will corrected. “They’re trusting  _ you,  _ that you’ll stop me if I get in a bad place.” 

“They trust the two of us combined,” Hannibal said. “To trust me with your health in turn trusts that you will reveal to me if something is wrong.” 

“I guess that means this is working, then.”

Hannibal’s lips twitched into one of his micro-smiles. “So it would seem. Does that please you?”

“Please me?” Will shook his head, less in denial and more in exasperation. “I don’t even know. I can’t even be sure I’m happy to be back on casework. It just feels...inevitable. Like at the end of the day, I’m meant to be in that room, whatever may be best for me.”

“You are unsatisfied with the work, yet you feel obligated to do it.” Hannibal took a long drink of his coffee, quietly mulling over whatever philosophical conundrum was turning through his head. “In distancing you from casework, Jack has provided you the opportunity to consider your personal desires over his professional needs. You rarely have occasion - or drive - to care for yourself, but you’ve had the chance to see how unhealthy you had become.”

“My health has nothing to do with Jack,” Will said. “Missing cases didn’t do anything but make me want to put my head through a wall. Any improvement I’ve seen in the past week has been because of-...”

_ ‘You’  _ felt too direct, but he had no other way of phrasing it. Instead, he waved a hand in a vague gesture between them, alluding to their plan as a whole. 

Hannibal’s lips curled up again, faintly amused. “The idea the break was good for you is not an idea entirely without merit. Perhaps the scenes themselves did not drag you any deeper into distress, but Jack’s repeated attempts to lead you psyche into dark places had you compromising your own sense of identity.”

“As opposed to you,” Will murmured. “Leading me into dark places to see if I can find the pieces of myself I’ve buried there.” 

Hannibal’s eyebrow quirked up, the questioning gesture reading more like a challenge. “I lead you into dark places?”

“Not really.” Will took a drink of his quickly cooling coffee, mulling it over. “Jack meets me at the edge of a dark space and shoves me in, and hopes I can find my way back out again. You...you turn the dimmer switch as I walk down the hall, so that by the time I’m at the space you want me I’m already adjusted to the dark.” 

“As a psychiatrist, the ideal situation would be to provide you the ability to navigate your own dark places,” Hannibal said. 

“But you aren’t my psychiatrist,” Will reminded him, tone just shy of teasing. “We have  _ conversations _ .” 

“Quite right.” Hannibal lifted his mug, like a toast. “Though I believe we’ve passed the realm of friends, as far as the world is concerned.”

Will huffed out a breath. “That reminds me,” he said, because it really did bother him, when he had time to think about it. “You called me your ‘partner.’”

“Should I not have?” Hannibal asked, in the same tone he asked all his most leading questions, trying to prompt Will into admitting some psychological turmoil.

This time, though, Will didn’t really have one. “I just didn’t really know what term I was supposed to use, if it came up. The idea of calling you my ‘boyfriend’ just seemed...wrong.”

Hannibal let out a soft laugh. “Partner, as a term, holds propriety and subtlety. It’s not a perfect title, but situations in which we must use such terminology are few and far between.”

Will hummed, considering, and took another drink from his coffee.

Poorly timed, because Hannibal continued on, casually throwing out, “Of course, one could also use ‘lover.’”

His choking earned him a barely restrained amused look from Hannibal, who hid his tiny little grin behind his mug, like it disguised him at all. 

“You’d use that just to irritate Jack, wouldn’t you?”

“It’s rather late,” Hannibal said, rather than an answer. “If you are going to work, I should leave you to get ready.”

Will glanced at the clock, and swore, scrambling to pass his mug back to Hannibal. “Yeah, thanks. I’ll probably run a little late, anyway, so...see you this afternoon?”

Hannibal plucked the cup from his hands, standing in a smooth motion. “I may visit you at lunch today, to be certain you’re alright.”

Will restrained himself from rolling his eyes. How much of Hannibal’s fussing was guilt and how much was just his general personality, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t going to bother trying to oppose it either way. Their sleeping arrangements the night before had proved the man cared little for Will’s opinions in this matter.

“I’ll see you at lunch, then,” Will conceded. “Thanks for the coffee.”

He had a feeling he’d need the caffeine, today. 

  
  
  
  
  


The first morning class held by Professor Graham was something of an urban legend among students of the FBI academy. New agents went through five months of training before they were accepted, and at some point in those standard classes, an existing agent would pass through and think to ask, “Have they told you guys about Graham, yet?”

Apparently, everyone took Graham’s class as special training as soon as possible, because it was considered vital. His insight on investigations was unparalleled, and everyone universally agreed that every agent would be better for having heard it. 

However, these praises came with a warning: when you sign up for Graham’s class, sign up for any block except the first one. 

What the man did at night, no one could say, but he stumbled into his first class of the day, every single day, without fail, clutching a cup of cheap coffee they could smell the burnt beans in from the farthest desks back, and mutter to himself as he set up his desk for the day. It would take him up to fifteen full minutes to even look around the room, and when he did, it was with an absent look that suggested he wasn’t even fully aware of his surroundings.

_ His first class is a sleepwalker block,  _ everyone would warn the incoming students.  _ Morning Graham is crazy Graham. _

The students of his most recent course, the ones who had either decided to ignore the warnings or were unlucky enough to be left with no choice, were predictably horrified to find out all of this was completely true...

...For about two days. 

One day, their teacher had fumbled with his computer, cursing under his breath as he closed emails as fast as he could move his fingers across the trackpad, letting them only glimpse bits and pieces. They’d all share what they’d caught, later, from the fact the email originated directly from the head of the Behavioral Science Unit to the buzzwords - like ‘ _ romantic relationship’ -  _ that had been spotted in the text. 

Then, miraculously, Graham’s behavior changed.

One day of coming in late and getting flustered, and it was like he’d become a new person. He came into classes each morning standing upright and awake, he greeted them as he walked in the door as though it were standard practice, he began lectures promptly and made his way through them with the same clarity and eloquence other classes insisted he always had. 

Everyone who mentioned it to older, established agents, one like the ones who had issued the initial warnings, they were met with open shock and disbelief. Apparently, Graham’s behavior was unprecedented. He had  _ always  _ been skittish and awkward, had  _ never  _ been a morning person by any stretch of the imagination, and while he hadn’t always been spacey and distracted, no one could really remember when that behavior started. 

His training classes were usually a couple of weeks each, which meant that he’d taught far too  many classes recently for current students to be able to track down ones that had never had the pleasure of a slightly unhinged Graham. 

Which meant they couldn’t find an easy explanation for his behavioral change, either.

Until, by a stroke of luck, one of his students managed to lag behind when gathering her things just long enough to overhear the beginnings of a conversation between a female agent who’d entered the room shortly before and an irate Graham.   
Particularly, the part where the woman grinned up at Graham, and casually asked, “How’s the boyfriend?”

Not a single person in the FBI, Academy or otherwise, was going to believe her about this...but she’d try to tell them anyway. 

The pursuit of knowledge was what the FBI was about, anyway...right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love beverly katz and so does will graham so no one be mean to her for being a bit loud about her enthusiastic support for her new top gays


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will vs. Social Interaction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uploading from my phone at work lmao sorry for any fuckups I have lorge thumbs

Beverly must have heard he was late, because when she met him in the doorway after his first class, she was looking extremely amused and self-satisfied.

“How’s the boyfriend?” she asked, in lieu of a greeting. 

“More of a partner,” he muttered in reply, remembering his and Hannibal’s conversation from the morning.

Beverly snorted. “That’s gay.”

Will gave her an incredulous look.

“Jeez, it’s a joke,” she said, waving him off. “I’m used to screwing around with Price. I forget you’re actually an old man.”

“Did you need something?” he sighed at her, giving up on trying to follow her humor.

“Grumpy,” she teased. “How easy would it be to cancel your next class?”   
“That bad, huh?”

“We’re dying, Graham,” she said. “Zeller’s run the same tissue samples so many times I think he has them memorized.”

“He didn’t seem particularly happy to have me around,” Will couldn’t help pointing out. 

“He’s an asshole,” Katz said, not sugar-coating it in the slightest. “He grows on you. Like a fungus.”

Will heavily doubted that, but he’d also been entirely certain Hannibal would continue to bore him until the end of time, and now the man was the most interesting thing in his life. 

“My lesson plan is screwed today,” he said. “If I teach my next class, they’ll be ahead of the first one, and that will put me off. Let me send the email and put a note up on the door, and I’ll come with you.”

Hopefully, he wouldn’t regret the choice.

  
  
  
  
  


“Oh, look,” Brian drawled, as Beverly and Will entered the lab. “He’s back.”

“Thank God,” Jimmy breathed. “I thought I was going to have to keep talking to  _ you _ .” 

Zeller flipped Price off, for that comment, and the latter stuck his tongue out in a decidedly more childish approach. 

“I wouldn’t open your mouth like that in here,” Beverly warned. “Who knows what’s in this air.”

“Hopefully nothing, considering it’s meant to be  _ sterile,”  _ Brian muttered. “Which it’s probably not, due to our  _ constant visitors.”  _

“Piss off, Zeller,” Beverly shot back. “Get the head block back out, and let’s open this lady up again.”

“No, no,” Will stopped her, stepping forward. The woman was indeed stitched back closed, the apparently having decided there was nothing left to gain from looking inside her. With the skin closed, he could see her skin on her chest for the first time, revealed from where the flowers had hidden it. 

Across her chest, there was faint scarring, sweeping in an arc above her breastbone. 

He reached to the side, plucking a glove out of the box on the counter and sliding on a pair, using safely covered fingertips to press lightly against the scarring. 

“What’s this?” he asked. “These marks, here?”

“Uh,” Price leaned over, looking himself. “I don’t know. Her medical history didn’t include any major injuries to her chest, from what we found.”

Will furrowed his brow, looking at the pattern of scars. His brain turned wildly, trying to turn the abstract shapes into something distinct.

...Wait.

“Do you have a marker?”

“...Yeah,” Jimmy said, and moved, returning a second later with one of their autopsy incision markers. “Go nuts.”

Will uncapped the pen, and set the marker lightly against the farthest edge of the scars, starting to trace the pattern he could see. 

A few minutes of delicate work later, he leaned back, taking a look at what he’d managed to salvage.

Some parts were blurred or indistinct, but the few bits he managed to clearly outline made up an inverted U and an uneven blob that could almost be a bird. 

“A birdcage,” he determined. “She had a tattoo of a birdcage, but she had it removed.”

“Exciting,” Zeller drawled. “This tells us…?”

“I wonder if it was a nightingale,” Beverly mused.

“What does that matter?” Brian asked.

“It’s a pretty common tattoo,” she said. “A lot of singers get them.”

An image came to mind, then, for Will: a memory of a dim-lit lounge and predatory eyes, and in the midst of it all, a flash of deep black ink again pale skin. 

It had been mostly hidden by the sleeve of her dress, but Will was almost certain that the singer from the opera had that same tattoo on her shoulder. 

What was her name? Lenora?

He frowned. The connection could be a coincidence - like she said, it was a common style of tattoo. Or, it could be a connection.

“Are there any societies around or anything that use that a birdcage as a symbol?” he asked. “She could have left one, and had the tattoo removed when she did.”

“Secret societies are usually a good place to look for a motive for murder,” Jimmy conceded. “I’ll see what I can find.” 

“Me, too,” Beverly agreed. “Good work, Graham.” 

Will gave a non-committal hum in response, eyes still locked on the ink outline. 

Why didn’t finding that lead feel like a victory?

  
  
  
  


Beverly took the new lead to Jack, who sent her back with a stack of files on known criminal organizations or groups with criminal affiliations. She had Zeller and Price thumbing through those as she and Will trudged through Google search results. 

It was about an hour into this investigative session that Hannibal appeared, knocking gently on the frame of the open door. 

“Lecter!” Beverly greeted. “They sent you our way, huh?” 

“It was a guess,” he replied. “Will did not answer the text I sent, so I assumed he was occupied.”

Will looked up from the laptop, blinking away the strain of squinting at a screen. “You texted me?” He gestured towards the computer. “Sorry. I probably have it off, honestly.”

“Bad move,” Beverly said. “What kind of boyfriend are you, Graham?”

Will shot her a look, and then looked to Hannibal, rather pointedly ignoring her. “I’ll shut this down so we can go to lunch, give me a second.”

“He’s fine, Katz,” Jimmy told her. “Lecter probably isn’t a naggy housewife type. He’s probably one of those calm, supportive sideline boyfriends.”

Will snorted, sweeping his laptop into his bad. 

“Ha!” Jimmy laughed out, at the noise. “He protests! Are we finally getting details?”

“No,” he said. “I just think it’s funny you guys want to know so bad.”

He was also privately amused by the idea that anyone could think Hannibal was in any way a ‘sideline’ type, when he practically radiated  _ control freak  _ from the moment Will met him. 

“You are a mystery, Will,” Hannibal said, tone almost teasing in its lightness. “Curiosity is natural.”

“Aw, how sweet,” Beverly cooed. “He thinks you’re interesting.”

“I should hope so,” Will muttered, shouldering his laptop bag. “Come on, let’s go eat before she drags you into an interview.”

Hannibal laughed, and placed a hand between Will’s shoulder blades, guiding him as they left the lab together. 

Maybe it was residual embarrassment from his tentatively labeled ‘friends’ teasing him about their relationship, or maybe it was the combination of observations and realizations Will had made over the past week, but the gentle touch seemed to burn. 

  
  
  
  


“It’s been a long week,” Will said, digging into his lunch. “And it’s only Tuesday.”

Hannibal chuckled, watching him across the outdoor table they’d commandeered. “Being back on cases is proving trying, then?”

“Not the case, really,” Will denied. “Just the people. I forgot how exhausting those three could be.”   
“They are high energy,” Hannibal said. “For someone who must put active effort into spending time with people, that can be draining.”

Will shook his head, not in denial so much as wry amusement. “It doesn’t really help that Zeller hates me.”

Hannibal hummed. “He does?”

“Oh yeah,” Will rolled his eyes, having trouble believing he was even bothering to try and explain. “I’m sure I could figure out why, if I tried, but I don’t really care. I never did anything to him, so whatever issue he has with me probably isn’t actually my fault. I’m not going to try and make him like me. It’s really not that important to me.”

“And yet, you mention it as a concern.” 

Will sighed, chewing his food as he thought it over. “I guess,” he said at last, “it’s an empathy thing. Strong emotions always throw me off. My brain just starts... _ screaming _ at me, telling me to look, even if I don’t want to. It’s hard to focus on helping when he’s breathing down my neck, waiting for me to screw up.”

“Perhaps allowing yourself to empathize with him would give you an idea for how to respond,” Hannibal suggested. 

“Or, alternately,” Will countered, “I let him go on with hating me until he finally gets angry enough to be openly hostile, and  _ then  _ respond.”

Hannibal huffed out a gentle laugh. “Unfortunately, few people are prone to grand gestures. Subtle distaste is most likely the best you will receive without drastic actions.” 

“I’m not picking a fight with a lab tech, Hannibal.”

Hannibal gave him an amused quirk of an eyebrow. “I didn’t suggest you should.”

“Not outright,” Will said. “But you’re telling me to treat him the same way you’ve been treating Alana, and one of these days she’s just going to punch you.”

Hannibal laughed outright. “Dr. Bloom is not a violent person, as far as I know. Any action she takes against me would be done at a professional level.” He sipped his drink, continuing, “As far as she can take it, at least. I have done nothing to compromise professional ethics, here.”

The addition of the word  _ here  _ sounded almost teasing, like it was suggesting there was a grey area in other respects, and Will shelved that observation for a closer look later. 

“You’re genuinely irritated with her,” Will observed. “Why?”

Hannibal hesitated a moment, apparently gathering his thoughts. “Alana and I have radically different approaches to mental health. In my work, I tend to avoid diagnosis of specific conditions, choosing to treat each brain as its own unique case. It’s an...unconventional approach, to say the least. Alana is a believer in a more standardized health care, believing that at the base level all humans have a fundamentally identical psychology.”

“And you don’t?”

“No,” Hannibal said. “I don’t. Each person’s mind is shaped by their experiences, and what may have started as the same mound of clay becomes a thousand unique sculptures. You cannot change a sculpture once the clay is hardened, and you cannot change a mind when the psychology is established.” 

“So you disagree on treating your patients,” Will summarized. “And that ties into this…?”

Hannibal gave a thin smile. “Alana Bloom’s view of minds leaves her with the ability to treat each person objectively, but it limits her abilities to adapt on a case-by-case basis. This is normally fine, but with you, it has become a point of contention.”

“With me?”

“Alana believes your brain to be disorderly,” Hannibal explained. “She will not be satisfied until your psychology is brought back down into the realm she considers to be healthy and liveable. She is bothered by the idea of a relationship between us because she knows I do not agree - I believe that your brain is exactly as it should be, just unrestrained. She would remove the parts of you that cause you problems, while I would have you learn to control them.”

Will shook his head. “I don’t think I follow.”

“She thinks I am going to enable you,” Hannibal explained. “That my presence will hinder any growth or development you could have made, had you been entrusted to her care or that of another professional who thinks as she does.”

Will frowned. “But she was fine when you were the one ‘treating’ me.”

“Professional care and personal involvement are different things,” Hannibal replied easily. “She could trust in my methods to help you, as they have helped others, even if she herself would have done differently. But now, she has seen nothing but a decline in your mental health, and I have ceased any pretense of treatment. She is forced to consider the possibility that I have made your health a lower priority than my own wants.”

“She’s worried you’re manipulating me,” Will realized. “She trusted you perfectly fine two weeks ago, but now she has to decide if that’s still true, because anyone else she’d have already turned in.”

“Precisely.” Hannibal gestured between them with his fork. “You are improving, as time proceeds, and eventually she will see that and her concerns will be quieted somewhat. But she has decided, on some level, that she trusts my character less than her own assessment of you, and that is where we find ourselves opposed. I dislike the idea that she’d prefer to think me a snake in the grass than to consider she may have been mistaken in thinking you a mouse.”

“The mongoose metaphor returns,” Will murmured. “Who is hunting who, here, Dr. Lecter?” 

Hannibal smiled in reply, a dark humor in his eyes that had Will looking into them in spite of himself. “The balance of nature is rarely so clear-cut. A hunter in the woods must be wary, for the beasts he hunts could be hunting him in turn.”

Will lifted his drink slightly, a mockery of a toast. “To the thrill of the chase, then.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal reflects.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> theres masturbation in this chapter because i am a benevolent author

After lunch, Hannibal left Will to return to his work - either classes or the lab, whichever claimed his attention first. On the way out, he was hit with a stroke of luck in the sound of Alana Bloom calling his name. 

She must have been meeting with Jack, because she came from the direction of his office, and she walked with steady purpose up to Hannibal, face grim and serious.

Hannibal had not been lying to Will about why Alana’s behavior bothered him, but it was not the full truth. He was grateful to her, actually, for playing along so wonderfully. Her increasingly territorial behavior would stay at odds with his own, and Will would eventually be forced to make a call: accept his defeats and surrender, or isolate himself further and allow Hannibal to become his sole link to the world. 

It was, however, also extremely irritating to have her outright speculating the validity of the disguises he’d crafted, and he needed to get a lid on that before it escalated and ruined his reputation completely. 

“Hannibal,” Alana called again, as she reached him. “We need to talk.”

“That we do,” he agreed easily. “Walk with me?”

She took the invitation, falling into step at his side. “I want to make it clear that my behavior isn’t personal,” she said. “I trust you, I’m just having trouble trusting your judgement. Will is…”

“Will is an adult,” Hannibal finished, when she hesitated. “Mental illness does not render one infantile, Dr. Bloom. If he is displeased with me, I assure you, he will let me know. He is not shy.”

Alana’s lip twitched, like she was trying to decide if she was clear enough to laugh at the semi-joking tone. “I’m not trying to baby him,” she said. “I just...don’t you think giving him something to hyperfixate on could make it worse? You’ve been dating for a week, and he’s already glued to your side.”

“Will would have likely stuck close to me regardless,” Hannibal countered. “He is in a position where everyone he knows - including you, Alana - has expressed the opinion that he is incapable of handling himself. He is not latching onto me because of our relationship, but because I am the only one who did not question his ability to decide.” At Alana’s skeptical look, he added, “Miss Beverly Katz, recently, has corrected that herself, and Will took to accepting her company frequently as well. Will is at sea in a damaged boat, afraid to drop anchor lest it break the hull. Tethering him to port is the only option remaining, and yet no one will reach out to him.”

“They don’t want to be the one that wrecks the ship,” Alana said. “And you can’t guarantee you won’t be.”

“Whether he leaves the ship on his own, or crashes, he will end up on shore.” Hannibal turned a curious raised eyebrow at Alana. “Should I cite Josef Breuer, and the theory of catharsis? He is better now than he was a week ago, and he will be better in a week than he was today. In taking him off cases, Jack surrendered power over Will. Through his own work, his consultations, and our relationship, he has slowly brought his life under his own control. He is improving.”

“He hallucinates,” Alana argued. “He dissociates. He forgets things. He needs a serious treatment, and if you can’t give it to him than I don’t think he’ll ever get it.”

“I will not force him to seek psychiatric care he does not want,” Hannibal told her. “But for the sake of the point, I will refer him to a psychiatrist I know with a similar treatment approach to my own. Perhaps he will accept input from her where he once took advice from me.” 

“Thank you, Hannibal,” Alana said. She hesitated for a moment, stopping in her stride, and Hannibal stopped beside her to wait for whatever thought had come to her.

After a moment of thought, she turned a genuine, red-lipped smile his way. 

“He seems happier, though,” she said. “I can see that. Even if it doesn’t turn out alright, you’re making him happy.” 

“It is mutual,” Hannibal returned. “There are few things that equal the joy of his company.”

Alana laughed, light and bubbly. “You sound enamored. I’m sorry to doubt you. I do mean it when I say it’s not personal.”

“It is understandable, if unwelcome,” Hannibal allowed. “Had our situations been reversed, I may have had similar thoughts. Did, almost, I suppose.” At Alana’s raised eyebrow, he smirked. “Will told me immediately after he kissed you. It was very difficult to help him sort out his feelings on the matter whilst fighting my own.”   
“You were jealous?” Alana laughed again. “That’s adorable, Hannibal. Don’t worry, he’s all yours.”

“That, he is,” Hannibal murmured in response.

She had no idea just how true that was. 

  
  
  
  
  


Daria Alessi had been a wonderful singer, in life, but a terribly impolite person. Hannibal had heard many a whisper about her treatment of the other singers in their opera group, before she left. 

She’d gotten her tattoo removed a month ago, and Hannibal had taken his opportunity when he had it. Breaking into her house and swapping basic prescription naproxen with a stronger anesthetic was easy, as was the rest of the process of her death.

He’d dressed her in flowers and left her like a love letter, and Will had seen it for what it was. 

To hear him lay out Hannibal’s thinking so precisely, almost perfectly, was invigorating. Their game had started as a chess match and was now more inline with a puzzle box, Will turning the cogs along the side to try and free each piece of the monster inside him. 

The puzzle box was Pandora’s, though, and the demons inside were eager to escape. What Will did with them when they were free would be a spectacular sight, and Hannibal desperately hoped he was able to bear witness to it. 

The ideal situation would be Will - and Abigail, to a lesser extent - giving into the paths he’d set out and becoming new creatures worthy of the work he did. An artist inviting in apprentices did so with the knowledge they might some day surpass him - a good teacher hoped that would be the case. Hannibal did not care for ranking or comparison between them.

He thought of Will’s hand, resting over his own, making it feel almost as though the man was guiding the knife Hannibal had been clutching. He thought of soft whispers that held no pity, no disgust, but open curiosity and restrained empathy. 

He had never in his life told the story of Mischa’s death, but he’d given that and more to Will Graham. 

It had been a long time since Hannibal had partaken in his teacup ritual, dropping it to watch the porcelain shatter, praying that this time it would bring itself together again and bring him back to a time before he lost himself.

Now, though, he turned a cup in his hands, and considered. He could drop it, scatter shards of it across his kitchen floor, and pray for the reversal of time…

But the cup would not come together. It never had, and never would. Instead, the shards would sit, still and mocking. 

If Hannibal did not clean them up fast enough, Will would arrive to find them. He’d be confused, perhaps alarmed, and seek out what had made Hannibal break something in the room of the house he was his most controlled. 

Time would not unbreak his cup, but Will Graham would help him gather the shards off the ground. The world would continue on, and for once, Hannibal turned with it. Where he once longed to return, he now anticipated the future, and the possibility that he might have a bit more left to seek. 

Will could kill him, or turn him in, but Hannibal didn’t care. He was placing his heart and his hands into Will’s, and trusting that whatever path they followed, progress would be better than stagnation. 

  
  
  
  
  


The end of the day came without any further eventful happenings, and Hannibal found himself in his guest bedroom yet again, setting up Will’s IV as per their nightly routine. 

As he stuck the needle into the man’s arm, he lowered his face to press against the man’s hand, drawing in a breath through his nose. 

The sickly sweet smell of fever had dissipated, leaving only the warm scent of Will’s own skin mixed with the spice of Hannibal’s preferred soap. His treatment was going well, and soon, Hannibal would be able to stop the nightly visits and move on to working with Will’s waking self. 

He moved again, dipping his head lower closer to the man’s chest, smelling the side of his neck for a better sample of the scent. 

“...Hannibal?”

Hannibal paused, Will’s sleepy murmur startling him. 

His position, hunched over Will, would be blocking the man’s vision, and he used that to his advantage - plus the instability the man likely felt, pre-IV sedative already making him sluggish.

Moving slowly, deliberately, Hannibal lowered his face to Will’s, sealing their lips together in a loving kiss.

He held the gesture for only a moment, before pulling back, breathing,  _ “Sleep,  _ Will.”

He kissed the man again, letting the affection carry the man off to sleep as Hannibal added more sedative into his system. 

  
  
  
  


Will was starting to hate his brain, when he woke early Wednesday morning with a tingling feeling on his mouth and the foggiest memory of his dream - specifically, the part of it where he’d been in bed with Hannibal Lecter.

Whatever the dream had been about, or featured, he couldn’t remember, but he remembered laying on his back with the man over him, sensual kisses falling on his lips. 

He was particularly bothered to discover that while his brain had been perfectly happy to throw away the details of the dream, his body seemed to have a clearer memory, as it was eagerly responding to the imagined attention. 

Will sighed, heaving himself out of the bed and into the bathroom, starting the shower.

As he lathered himself in Hannibal’s soap, taking in the scent as though he were pinned under the man like he’d dreamed hours before, he gave in to the urge to respond.

If he was going to torture himself agonizing over feelings Hannibal may or may not have for him, he may as well let that be a thought that gets him off.

He turned in the spacious shower to lean against a tiled wall, letting the water roll warm over his shoulder and chest as it splashed against his side, and lowered a hand to the semi-erection demanding his attention. He stroked lazily, not particularly in any hurry, and raised his free hand. Soap still on it, the smell was very distinctly _Hannibal,_ and he trailed it against his chin to keep it strong. After a moment, he lowered his hand just slightly, resting it against his own throat. 

Warm fingers measured the differences between the pulse of his jugular and that of his groin, and he slid his eyes closed, letting the sensations carry him into a tranquil state of pleasure.

For a brief moment, he considered exploring, testing how far the fantasy would let him venture before the fact that he’d been rather certain he was straight a few weeks ago raised up to protest. That was braver than he chose to be, though, and he shelved the idea for later consideration. 

The idea came to him, then, of having actual sex with Hannibal, and he could feel himself swallow under his hand. 

Hannibal craved control, and Will’s brief whim had been instinctively handing it over. He considered, instead, the idea that Hannibal would take his control from another angle, surrendering the reins to Will. 

While Will wasn’t entirely certain what his own feelings were, or how he fell on the Kinsey scale he’d once been sure of his place on, it wasn’t anything particularly groundbreaking for him to realize he would very much enjoy fucking Hannibal Lecter. 

He arched into his own touch as that thought carried him over the edge. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


Hannibal handed over Will’s coffee mug, taking in the relaxed air around the man, and drew in a small breath when the man wasn’t watching. 

He originally just chased the smell from the night before, promising improved health and clarity, but faltered when that was not the main scent that hit him.

Underneath a thick layer of Hannibal’s soap - an almost erotic choice on its own - there was a distinct sweetness.

Hannibal’s lips curled up at the corners, and he wondered how much of the man’s morning routine had been determined by his ‘dream.’ 

Alana’s surrender was not the only point of progress he’d made, it seemed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hannibal is really, really gay tbqh


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack Crawford arrives on scene.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jack, showing up 15 chapters late with starbucks

Will hadn’t really thought much on it, but he supposed he’d been rather lucky so far in avoiding Jack. The only time he’d actually seen the man face-to-face, he’d been in too much of a rush to try saying anything, especially with Hannibal standing right there. Will hanging up on him the other day probably didn’t do anything to help his ire, and so he should really have been working on a strategy for how exactly to go about diffusing that situation when they were forced together again.

Of course, all that was clear in hindsight, about five seconds too late, as Jack strode into the lab.

“Will,” he greeted. “Leaving off classes for another day?”

“I’m at lunch,” Will replied, not even bothering to look up from his internet searching. 

“And Lecter’s apparently busy,” Beverly chimed in. “So no lunch date, today.”

“He lives an hour and a half away,” Will reminded her, weakly. “He doesn’t need to drive over here every day.” 

“Loves knows no distance, Graham.”

Will shook his head, not bothering to respond to that. Beverly was  _ way  _ too amused by his ‘relationship’ with Hannibal. He really didn’t see what was so interesting about it, beyond the fact that they were both pretty much strangers to the people of the BAU, despite both working there frequently. In a place filled with extroverted investigators, two highly private people with an aura of mystery about them were probably just too much of a temptation for them to pass up sticking their noses into. 

Motivation didn’t matter now, though. He had to worry about actions. Specifically, which ones Jack planned to take, now that he had the opportunity to let Will how he felt about the latest developments in his life. 

“Since we’re speaking of Dr. Lecter,” Jack started to say.

“I’d really rather we weren’t.”

“Well, we are.” Jack levelled him with a challenging stare. When Will barely flicked his eyes up to the man’s face before going right back to his information search, he must have taken that as permission to continue. “Did you tell Alana as soon as this happened?”

Will huffed out a low breath. “You sound like you’re investigating a murder. What does it  _ matter?” _

“I just want to know how long this has been going on,” Jack said. “Make sure everything he’s told me since I called him in is still viable.” 

“Lecter’s carrying a mad torch for Graham, but he’s not a liar,” Beverly chimed in. “And he wouldn’t tell you to let the guy he likes go look at corpses if he thought it’d drive him crazy.”

“Not to mention I’m not going to prostitute myself for a rubber stamp,” Will said. “I told Alana I was dating Hannibal the morning after-...”

Beverly wolf-whistled.

Only hesitating with a brief exasperated sigh, Will pressed on. “After it was established. I told her immediately. But if you genuinely think Hannibal would have changed what he was saying because of a relationship between us, you don’t know him at all.”

“I don’t want to believe he’d lie,” Jack said. “I just have to know for sure.”

Will had carefully avoided phrasing it that way, actually. Hannibal lying about his opinion of Will’s health was actually perfectly likely - if Hannibal thought Will needed to be at crime scenes, he’d say whatever it took to get Jack to let him. That’s how their whole fake dating scheme  _ started. _

In light of that, something about Jack’s faith in the doctor grated him.

“So you don’t want to believe he’d lie,” Will said, “but you have to be suspicious, because it’s just so ridiculous?”

“What? No.” Jack shook his head. “I didn’t expect it, no, but it’s…”

The man trailed off, and looked to him in a sort of helpless way, like the rest of the sentence should have been obvious.

And it  _ was,  _ and Will was  _ pissed. _

“It’s easier for you to think Hannibal was giving me what I wanted, letting me out on cases, because that means he would have been willingly putting me at risk and that makes any breakdowns I have firmly his fault.” Will glared at him, reaching out to snap his laptop shut. “I’m sorry to have to discredit your alibi, Jack, but Hannibal plays devil’s advocate for you  _ constantly.  _ It’s actually kind of annoying, because somehow the same things that don’t make any sense coming from you sound perfectly natural from him, and it makes it really hard to be angry at you.”

“I’m not trying to shove blame off for this,” Jack defended. “I’m trying to make sure everyone involved is acting in your best interest.”

“You and Alana,” Will muttered, shaking his head. “Why do you both want to believe I’m going crazy so badly?”

Jack watched him with a steely gaze for a moment, before finally replying. “We’re not willing to gamble your life if we’re wrong.” 

“You’re doing that anyway,” Will told him, anger draining from him until he was just speaking tiredly. “Even when I’m falling apart, this helps. It’s easier to compartmentalize when the dark parts of my mind aren’t actually mine.”

“I don’t see it that way,” Jack said. “You’re better now than you’ve been in a long while.”

“I’ve been practically living in Hannibal’s house for a week,” Will informed him. “It’s not the lack of cases that’s helping. It’s just that Hannibal is better at keeping me healthy than I am.” 

Off to the side, Beverly whistled again, drawing the men’s attention to her. 

She gave a sarcastic half-smile. “Hey, boss, as awkward as this is, I’m gonna go ahead and cut in.” She waved toward Will. “Look at him. The bags under his eyes used to be big enough to hold bodies. Maybe us not giving him nightmare fuel helped. Maybe Lecter’s just-...”

“Please,” Will rasped. “Don’t finish that.”

Beverly laughed. “Yeah. Anyway, it doesn’t matter what the reason is. His break helped, and now he’s not nearly as bad as he was even when he first started doing these. I didn’t know it was possible for him to be totally grounded. No offense, Graham.”

“No, it’s accurate,” Will allowed. “I was already having trouble sleeping when I first got brought in, and it only got worse. I  _ am  _ better, now.” 

Saying it outloud made him realize how true it was. He’d stopped being surprised to wake up with dry skin, still in the position he’d fallen asleep in, with either no dreams or pleasant ones echoing through his mind. He had the memory of the fire dream, which he could excuse as his brain desperately trying to get him to recognize Hannibal as a risk, and the apparent seizure that Hannibal had admitted was a medication mistake on his part. 

Something churned in his stomach, and his head couldn’t help running with the train of thought. 

Just going to Hannibal’s couldn’t have been the cure for his ails, nor could dropping cases. He’d had no cases and his own house that day he’d gone home, and apart from a highly vivid dream and its aftershocks, he’d been fine. He’d noted the first day that whatever Hannibal had given him was probably a medication he should have had a prescription for, but dismissed it, figuring Hannibal knew what he was doing.

Except, he didn’t. He’d messed up and Will something he was allergic to.

But in order for that to make sense, it would have to be that he gave Will either a higher dose of the medication or a different version of it, and both of those left the question of why Hannibal hadn’t just done the same thing again. Especially after the night with the tea, and his comment that he didn’t want Will dependent on medication.

Hannibal may have been doing something deliberately, chasing some unknown goal, and Will desperately needed to know what that was. 

That was something he could worry about later, though. For now, he needed to focus on getting himself out of the argument he’d stumbled into. 

“You  _ are  _ doing better,” Jack agreed. “I’m not gonna argue why, I’m just glad to see it. But I’m keeping an eye on things, and I’m not going to throw you back in when I don’t know how you’ll handle it.”

“Fine,” Will sighed out. “I’ll do what I can from here, then, I guess.”

“Good.” Jack extended an arm, then, passing a folder to Beverly. “This is what I came for. Another victim was found this morning.”

Will straightened, alarmed. “The Ripper’s?” he asked, frowning. “Did he get his answer, then?”

“That’s for you to tell me,” Jack replied. “Take a look. I tried to get them to take as many clear photos as possible, for you.”

“Thanks,” Will said, taking the file from Beverly. 

When he opened it, his breath caught. The victim was a woman again, but instead of her chest being torn into, her belly was. Her hands were posed to either side of the opening, and inside of it, where her stomach should have been, sat a heart. 

He looked up to her chest, noting the lack of stitching. “The heart isn’t hers,” he said.

“No,” Jack confirmed. “Initial assessment pegged it as male, and damaged by heart disease. Everything else needs testing.” 

Will reached out, trailing a finger along the silhouette of the woman in the photo. “It’s supposed to be symbolic of a birth,” he said. “He gave away his heart and it’s bringing forth a new life.” He looked up to Jack. “Whoever his partner was, they accepted.”

“So now we have two killers to look for,” Jack huffed. “I’ll make sure the team knows to keep an eye out, in case we find something else.”

Will hummed in acknowledgement, looking back down to the photo. 

It had been leaving him alone, lately, but he could feel the stag breathing against his neck as he studied the image. Something was hidden, there, and it was waiting for him to find it. 

He caught sight, in one of the close-up images, of something in her hand, and took a closer look at it.

A prescription bottle.

The notes in the file declared it to be a man’s prescription heart disease medication - probably belonging to the owner of the damaged heart.

She had control of his heart in her hands...but no, that wasn’t the message. Not by itself. What it  _ was  _ evaded him, but he could feel it, just out of his reach.

What was he supposed to  _ see? _

  
  
  
  
  


Hannibal met Will at the door when he got home - or, when he got to Hannibal’s. Starting to mentally refer to the place as ‘home’ was the first step down a slippery slope he didn’t want to go down. 

“Will,” Hannibal greeted. “If you have a moment, I’d like your input.”

“On?”

Hannibal guided him toward the kitchen. “I’m going through my recipe wheel, choosing dishes for this weekend. I’ve already sent out invitations, I should establish a menu.” 

“I’m not sure how I’d be of any help, there,” Will said. “Most of the dishes you make have  _ ingredients  _ I’ve never even heard of.” 

“Yes, but you can tell me what tastes the best.”

“What?” Will asked, stopping in the doorway of the kitchen and looking inside. “Christ, Hannibal. Have you been cooking all day?”

There were tiny plates, like tea saucers, scattered all about the counter, filled with various small dishes.

“I still had my schedule cleared,” Hannibal said. “Without patients, I had little else to do.”   
“Wait, ‘still’?” Will echoed. “Why was your schedule cleared?”

Hannibal raised an eyebrow. “I had two weeks open to devote to helping you, should you need me.”

Will blanched. “You cleared your schedule for me,” he muttered. “That’s why you’ve been able to visit me at lunch every day.” He shook his head. “But you told Alana you were escaping patients.”

“Hardly the boldest lie I’ve told her.”

Will snorted. “I guess that’s fair.” He let out a low breath. “I can’t believe you- what about your patients? Will they all be okay just...waiting two weeks?”

“Most of my patients see me on a monthly basis, not weekly,” Hannibal said. “These two weeks were very sparsely populated by appointments, and I made sure to confirm each reschedule personally. I will be rather busy the next two weeks, to compensate, but other than that there is little consequence.” 

Will couldn’t believe he’d just dismissed Hannibal’s presence over the past week and a half as completely reasonable. He knew the man had a lot of free time, typically, only taking so many patients at a time, and that had been enough to save him suspicion when Hannibal turned up at the FBI academy day after day.

Now, though, he knew that Hannibal had done that specifically to be available for Will. 

He wasn’t sure if it was touching or disturbing that Hannibal viewed Will as such a priority.

“Now,” Hannibal said, stepping into the kitchen. “If you would like, we could go through the options for the dinner?”

Will took a deep breath, centered himself, and nodded, following Hannibal into the room. He could only force the doors that kept opening in his mind to stay shut so long, but he’d keep pushing against them as long as he could. Every time he tried to notice something new, he was just reminded how entirely unprepared for it he was.

Hannibal Lecter had him on a pedestal, and he wasn’t ready to see what held him up there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter should be fun ;)


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new development.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guess what bitches its the porn chapter

“Alright,” Will said, sitting at the bar and dragging the closest dish toward himself. “What’s this?”

“Charcuterie,” Hannibal replied. “An assortment of prepared meats. Rather straightforward.”

The dish was a tiny tray, with three different meats sitting on it - a spiral of some kind of ham caught his eye first, and he picked it up, popping it into his mouth.

Sweet hit him first, followed by a warm spice, and he hummed in approval.

“That’s good,” he said. “What did I just eat?”

“Goose ham,” Hannibal said. “Beside it are fennel salami, and coppa.”

“Coppa?”

“Part of a pork shoulder.” 

To Will’s surprise, Hannibal moved to stand at his side, leaning against the counter beside him. He reached out, picking up the far right meat that he’d identified as ‘coppa.’ “It’s a muscle that runs along the side of a pig, along the collar and down to the rib.” He held the meat chunk out to Will. “It is considered one of the most flavorful, tender parts of a pig.” 

Will reached out, carefully taking the meat from Hannibal’s fingers and biting into it.

It was delicious, as expected.

“I don’t know what input you want from me,” Will said. “I’m probably not going to narrow this down at all. I’ve never disliked anything you’ve cooked.”

“But you have liked some better than others,” Hannibal countered. “The face you make upon your first taste of each dish tells me how highly I should prioritize it. The charcuterie board will likely feature at the party, as you seem quite taken with it.”

The man moved again, picking up another plate and bringing it back to Will’s side. This one he held up again, hinting toward the beginning of a theme. 

“Tod man pla,” the man said. “A Thai fish cake.”

Will took it, taking a small bite. “It’s good,” he said. “The texture’s kind of unpleasant, though.” 

“True.” 

This continued for what could have been half an hour, Will tasting dish after dish and giving varying levels of praise.

Each one, Hannibal held up to him, passed off from his fingers to Will’s before being eaten, making the whole experience oddly intimate. 

Finally, Hannibal announced they were on the last dish, and brought forth another plate.

This one was decidedly less artful than the rest, looking more standard restaurant fare than five star dining. It looked like a dumpling, and and was the first food Hannibal provided a fork for. 

He used the fork to pick up a bite of the dish, holding it out to Will sideways, offering him to take the utensil. “This is a cepelinas - Lithuania’s national dish, by some accounts. It has been a long time since I prepared a traditional food from my home, but I felt it appropriate.”

Will met Hannibal’s eyes, the eye contact somehow feeling the least intimate part of the exchange. 

Hannibal was throwing out an implication, there, that Will gave him the strength to return to roots he’d repressed. Will had allowed him a safe tethering point from which to revisit his childhood traumas, and in doing so had given Hannibal the strength to grow that much stronger.

Will lowered his eyes to the single bite at the tip of the fork, held up by Hannibal. He was offering it for Will to take into his own hand, the same way they’d passed off every bite he’d taken so far.

Hannibal’s cooking was his outlet, the place where he could pour his soul out and into something constructive. This was Hannibal offering his heart.

Maybe he was overthinking it, but...he really didn’t think he was.

He reached out, acting without giving himself time to doubt himself. He caught Hannibal’s hand, holding the fork, and turned it, using it to swivel the utensil toward himself.

He leaned forward, taking the bite off the end of the fork whilst it was still in Hannibal’s hand, feeling the man’s wrist flex under his fingers. 

Will chewed slowly, raising his eyes up to meet Hannibal’s again. “I think,” he said, carefully, “this one is my favorite.”

Hannibal’s eyes were dark as he set the fork back down on its plate, hand leaving Will’s grip for a moment. “I was uncertain about it.”

He stepped away, going to move back, and Will followed in a smooth motion, standing up to face him again. “Hannibal.”

Hannibal’s expression was tense, and Will got the sense he was holding back, biting down on an impulse.

Will had a good idea what that impulse may have been.

He reached up, hand hooking behind Hannibal’s neck. The two met eyes yet again, something that was becoming more and more common, and they stared at each other for a long while. 

“You are empathizing with me yet again,” Hannibal murmured. “What do you see, this time?”

Will didn’t answer. Instead, he pulled against Hannibal, dragging the man down the short space of their height difference to meet him for a kiss.

Their lips making contact felt like a divine act, finally fulfilling that unidentifiable craving that had been filling Will’s soul. That craving was now one he could define as  _ Hannibal,  _ a desperation to become ever closer to the man. 

The need wasn’t even necessarily romantic, or even sexual. It was on a deeper level; whatever it was about Hannibal that called to him, he felt like they were intertwined down to the very core, destined to become an integral part in each other’s lives. Hannibal had changed him, in their time together, and he had changed the doctor in turn. This was just another stage of that ongoing exchange, a physical manifestation of the influence they had on each other. 

Hannibal’s kiss was hardly responsive, just reacting to Will’s contact, and the empath was almost annoyed by it. He pushed a bit more firmly, and when Hannibal only just barely responded to that, he went a bit farther. He dragged Hannibal’s lip between his own, and bit down on it lightly. 

_ That  _ got a reaction.

Hannibal moved, going from passively allowing the contact to actively returning it, his hands finding perches on Will’s hips for a split second before one moved up to his hair, tangling in his curls. He tipped his head and returned the kiss as good as he got, before returning the bite to Will’s lower lip, his harsher than the original act and leaving the faintest copper taste in Will’s mouth as his blood vessels burst and bruised the inside of his lip. 

Will pulled back to catch his breath, resting his forehead against Hannibal’s as he fought for air.

“Will,” Hannibal murmured to him. “If you do not intend to continue, say so now.”   
Will showed him how stupid he was being by dragging him back in. 

Apparently taking that as full consent, Hannibal dragged Will pressed flush against him, hand from his hip rising to rest between his shoulder blades and hold him close as possible. He backed up, then, leading Will backwards toward the kitchen door. He broke the kiss in the doorway, and took Will’s hand instead, leading him into the living room. 

Hannibal sat in his armchair, dragging Will down with him until he was straddling his lap in the chair. 

Will had never pictured himself in such a position, but the inherent submission of it felt oddly natural. 

They kissed again, this one deeper than the previous ones, and Will felt Hannibal’s hands return to his sides. One dipped low, then creeped back up, easing inside of Will’s shirt to trail fingertips lightly against his stomach and hipbones. 

Will broke their kiss and reached down, lifting the fabric Hannibal had simply pushed aside and pulling it up, over his head and off, tossing it toward the couch. 

“I’ll pick that up later,” he murmured, the promise only half sarcastic.

“Appreciated,” Hannibal replied, voice heavily amused, before he dipped his head to trail kisses and small nips along Will’s collarbone. 

Will responded by raising his hand back to rest behind Hannibal’s head, fingers threading through his hair. 

He expected Hannibal to return to kissing him, letting the two of them make out on the armchair for an indeterminate amount of time. He didn’t expect Hannibal to apparently get bored of that, and hook his hands under Will’s knees, lifting him as he stood.

The hold was awkward, but it served its purpose, taking a surprised Will two steps back and letting him be dropped onto the couch.

Hannibal paused in front of him, pulling off his coat and tie and tossing them gently onto his abandoned armchair. 

Given that Will had never really been attracted to a man, it surprised him how erotic the act of removing a tie could seem. 

Hannibal reached to unpop his top button from the collar of his shirt, and Will hooked a finger through his belt loop, dragging him in close enough to start working on undoing his belt. 

Hannibal chuckled at the act, a hand petting through Will’s curls, but he said nothing. Instead, he finished removing his shirt, and then helped Will’s progress on his belt, setting both aside on the chair as well. He then stepped back, dropping down onto his knees in front of Will and kissing him again.

“If you are amenable,” Hannibal started to murmur.

“I am,” Will replied, immediately. “Whatever you’re thinking, just do it.”

Hannibal laughed again, and stepped back, extending a hand to Will. 

“Let me take you to bed,” he said, voice a low purr.

Will didn’t even have the words to respond. He just took the hand, swallowed, and let the man lead him up the stairs. 

Once in Hannibal’s room, the doctor pulled Will around, backing him up against the bed and guiding him down onto it. He then stepped back again, stepping out of his shoes and undoing his pants.

Will tried to recover enough cognitive function to reach for his own zipper, toeing off his shoes and shucking his own pants, hand hesitating at the elastic waistband of his boxers.

How far, exactly, was Hannibal intended to go?

Hands found Will’s hips, and hooked under the band, guiding them down.

Well, that answered that.

Boxers finally aside, Hannibal knelt on the edge of the bed, and Will took a moment to take in the sight of Hannibal _naked._ He was unfairly beautiful, the artful sculpt of his body as much a marvel as the rest of him. He didn’t get long to appreciate it, either, before Hannibal’s hands went under his knees, pulling his legs slightly up and apart.

The man trailed kisses along Will’s inner thighs, inching from the edge of his knee upward, until his lips were teasing at the skin just to the side of Will’s rapidly hardening erection. 

“Wait,” Will breathed, moving his leg to nudge against Hannibal’s shoulder with his thigh. 

Hannibal looked up to him, eyebrows raised and lips still pressed against his skin.

Will swallowed. “I…” he struggled for words, brain a mass of aroused mush. “I want…”

Hannibal hummed against his skin, and pulled back a little. “You want me to fuck you?”

Will’s eyes slid closed. “Yes.”

Hands rubbed along his thighs, their touch warm and heavy. “Very well."

Hannibal retreated, and Will opened his eyes again to watch the man step into his en suite bathroom, returning a moment later with a small plastic jar. 

As he approached, he turned the jar, showing the label to Will.

Coconut oil. A reasonable substitute for lube, he supposed.

Not that he had much knowledge, there. He’d had sex a handful of times in his life, and not a single one of them had been with a man.

And, oh, _shit._ He was about to have sex with a man. Not just any man, either, but Hannibal Lecter, the very symbol of propriety and power.

There was a soft wet noise of the oil squishing around fingers, and a moment later, a cool touch pressed against the space behind Will’s balls.

“Fuck,” he muttered, as Hannibal’s fingers dragged down, almost _petting_ him, stroking against his hole for the briefest second before rising up again, just to come right back down. The touches trailed up and down along him, and Will felt like he was on fire, the sensation crawling through his skin and forming a knot in his stomach.

“Hannibal,” he breathed, not really sure what it was he meant to convey. A request, maybe - one that Hannibal understood immediately, and pressed forth, finger sliding into Will. 

Will sucked in a breath, arching slightly at the unfamiliar touch. The feeling was uncomfortable and foreign, but the stretch reminded him of the biting kisses from before - not quite pain, not quite pleasant, but somewhere in the tantalizing middle ground. 

The finger moved, rounding in a small circle, pressing against tense muscle to get it to relax. Will slowly adjusted to the touch, discomfort getting less and less notable as it carried on.

Hannibal’s finger crooked forward, and Will swore, finally getting the rush of pleasure he’d been waiting for. 

Hannibal must have been encouraged by the sound, because he did it again, and then pulled his hand back slightly until he was in Will only up to his first knuckle. He gave Will a moment to squirm, muscles clenching against his fingertip, before he pushed back in, returning to full submersion before curling again. 

Will was definitely fonder of this than he’d expected to be. 

Hannibal did the same thing a few more times, each time that much better than the last, until finally he pulled back, returning his fingers to the oil jar and bringing two freshly slicked ones up to enter Will again.

The wider stretch brought more discomfort and more faint pain, but when the fingers curled they brushed along his inner walls in a wider arc, and that made the pleasant feeling that much stronger.

Again, Hannibal fell into the cycle of gentle thrusts and careful movements, until Will was bearing down with each movement, arching into the touch. 

The third finger probably should have hurt more, but Will was lost in sensation, too overstimulated for him to properly focus on any one feeling. 

“Hannibal,” he panted, when the gentle finger curls were making him feel dangerously close to the edge. “Please.”

Hannibal’s lips bushed his inner thigh again. “Please?” he prompted.

Will squirmed against the touch, thigh muscles flexing as he fought to simultaneously flee the stimuli and bear down to experience them better. “Fuck me.”

Hannibal’s low rumbling laugh against his skin almost did him in. “With pleasure.”

The fingers left him, and he had the barest of seconds to miss them before Hannibal was slicked up and pressed back against him.

He fought not to tense, and was rewarded with the first press of the man entering him, a slow slide that blew the gently curling fingers out of the water. 

He adjusted quickly, ignoring any lingering discomfort or pain in order to bear down on Hannibal. 

Hannibal must have caught the implication of impatience, because he started to move, slowly thrusting into Will. With each movement, he shifted slightly, changing the angle with which he pressed into Will. Some presses were dull sensations, just a strange fullness with no real response, but others pressed against nerves that had his body singing.

Technical knowledge spun through his mind, distantly trying to piece together which nerve endings were reacting, but all deductive reasoning ceased when a thrust his a particularly intense set of nerves.

The little bit of information Will had on this particular thing had him aware that Hannibal had probably just found his prostate, and this was dangerously close to becoming one of his favorite things. 

Hannibal responded to the string of curses falling from his mouth by sticking to that same angle, fucking into him earnestly. After a moment, his hand dropped down, enclosing around his dick and starting to stroke in time with his thrusts.

Will’s legs clenched down hard on Hannibal’s sides, his head falling back and his spine arching as he came, Hannibal’s name on his lips. 

Distantly, he felt Hannibal follow just behind him, warmth spreading inside him as the men slumped together in post-coital bliss.

Will panted heavily, staring up at the ceiling, and let the shock of the situation finally catch up to him.

He’d just had sex with Hannibal Lecter.

And, regardless of how their relationship would develop from there, he most definitely wanted to do that again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "wow christian thats kind of divergent from your usual slow burn style"   
> me, looking at my notes: we are far from the end my children


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not all is well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you think I'd let them be happy??? Fools

Will felt Hannibal settle in next to him as though he were in a dream, everything distant enough that he was half certain he’d just hallucinated the whole thing. 

A hand trailed down his side, resting on his hip bone, and Will realized it was real. 

Only reality could be so bittersweet.

“Hannibal,” he murmured. At the man’s acknowledging hum, Will turned to him. “What have you been giving me?”

Hannibal was not so amateurish as to flinch, but the fingers drumming against his side stilled for the briefest moment. 

He didn’t play dumb - he wasn’t one to insult Will that way. Instead, he asked, “What made you wonder?”

“Sleeping medications don’t work for me,” he said. “I figured something was wrong on day one. That ‘allergic reaction’ just sealed it. You’re drugging me with something. What?”

“Interesting you would ask what, and not why,” Hannibal murmured. 

“One should tell me the other,” Will replied. 

There was a long moment of quiet where Will worried he would have to press for the information again, more forcefully, before Hannibal finally spoke.

“You have been on an alternating treatment cycle of oral anti-inflammatories and intravenous antiviral medications.” 

“Intravenous,” Will echoed, his own voice sounding robotic in his ears. “Those dreams weren’t dreams. You’ve been hooking me up to an IV at night.”

“It was the fastest method,” Hannibal said, voice casual, as though this were a perfectly reasonable path of logic. “My impatience led to an overdose, at one point, but otherwise has proven rather helpful.”

Will’s blood rushed in his ears, shock and slowly rising anger striking him silent for a long pause. 

“What do I have?” he murmured, finally giving in to the curiosity.

“Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis,” Hannibal said, fingers resuming their drumming against his stomach, the affection touch at odds with the cold calculation of his voice. “A severe swelling in the brain.”

“The hallucinations,” Will realized. “The spacing out. That’s why you didn’t think I was crazy. You  _ knew  _ I was sick.”

“You do not need me to confirm this,” Hannibal said. “You’ve already put it all together, haven’t you?”

“You wanted me to doubt myself,” Will said. “You wanted me to trust you more than I trusted myself.” He shifted, leaning to arc over Hannibal, staring down at the man as he struggled to feel something other than dull offense and cold acceptance. “You wanted me to need you.” 

“I do not want,” Hannibal replied. “I  _ have.”  _

Will shifted, moving on instinct, hands pressing up against Hannibal’s neck. 

Their eyes met again, and this time, there was a challenge in Hannibal’s that was more honest than anything Will had ever seen from him.

“Anyone lesser would have been taken by the illusion,” Hannibal practically cooed to him. “They would have fallen for the image of a savior, and been content with the manufactured affection.”

“You wanted to control how I loved you,” Will said. 

“A futile effort on my part,” Hannibal admitted. “No one can force your responses to stray from their natural course. Whatever you feel for me, that is yours.”

“What I feel,” Will echoed. “What do I feel?”   
Hannibal’s chin tipped up, straining his windpipe to press into Will’s palms. “Decide,” he murmured. “Is the sense of betrayal really so strong, when you did not believe my ruse from the beginning? You were never fooled by me, Will. Not any more than you allowed yourself to be.”

Will pressed his thumb down against Hannibal’s jugular, taking in the hitch in the man’s breath as his airflow constricted. 

“Stop,” he muttered. “Stop talking. Just...stop.”   
Against Hannibal’s skin, he could feel the trembling of his own hands. The skin next to his fingers was blanched and rapidly recoloring, the threat of a bruise just starting to form.

Will took his hands away, and moved them to the bed on either side of Hannibal’s head, staring down at him as he tried to gather his thoughts with the same struggle Hannibal tried to reclaim his breath. 

“How much more medication do I need to be cured?” he asked, voice low.

Hannibal’s harsh breathing calmed before he answered. “Less than a week. Perhaps three or four days of intravenous treatment.”

“You have four days, then,” Will said, practically in a growl. “Convince me.”

“Of what?”

“That I don’t hate you,” WIll said. “That I don’t want to kill you.”

The look in Hannibal’s eyes suggested he was debating if he even wanted to.

“You love me,” Will said. “You practically scream it with your actions. If you want me to play along with your game, if you want me to stay around, convince me.”

“Or?”

“Or I’ll kill you,” Will said, watching Hannibal’s eyes dilate at the promise before pushing back, leaving the bed. 

As he moved, gathering his clothes and starting to redress, he didn’t look back to the unmoving figure behind him.

He didn’t know what he felt. He didn’t know what he wanted to feel. 

He didn’t know if he wanted Hannibal to convince him or not.

He just...didn’t know. 

  
  
  
  
  


Leaving Hannibal’s as late at night as it was wasn't really an option, despite how vastly he would have preferred it. As it was, he headed upstairs and to the guest room he’d made his own, stripping back down to boxers and a t-shirt and throwing himself into bed. 

He started at the ceiling for a long while, debating sleep, before dragging himself up out of bed again and heading down the hall. 

Hannibal's room was unknown to him. While he knew which one the man was in, he’d never seen inside of it, or even really paid much mind to the door. 

Now, though, he raised his hand to rap his knuckles against the wood. 

The door opened almost immediately. 

“Will,” Hannibal greeted. 

“There’s no point in me trying to sleep if you're going to come by with needles later,” Will said. “I figured I'd save you the trouble.”

Hannibal stepped aside, wordlessly inviting him in. 

Will entered the room and took a moment to look around, taking in the style of the space. It looked remarkably similar to the guest room, with a sort of staged style that suggested he'd just ripped the layout straight from the advertisement he’d found the items in. 

“You don't spend a lot of time in here,” Will observed. 

“Little reason to,” Hannibal replied. “Should I have need of it for any reason other than sleep, perhaps I would care more for its appearance.”

Will wasn’t sure, but he thought that might have been an innuendo. 

He ignored it. Remembering their tryst a few hours earlier only confused him further. 

He dropped into the bed, laying back against the headboard. “So, how have you been doing this?”

Hannibal moved to his en suite bathroom, and reappeared a moment later with a clear box filled with IV supplies. “I approached your room at midnight to apply a light sedative. The instances you remember as your ‘dreams’ were instances where you woke just as the chemicals were entering your bloodstream. After it was active in your system, the IV was simple to apply.”

“So you drugged me to get away with drugging me even more,” Will summarized. “Great.”

“Would you have preferred I wake you?” Hannibal asked, staring to pull out his pieces and set them up. “Or better still, place you in a hospital, to recover under the watchful eyes of its staff? You are uncomfortable even with my touch, at times. Strangers would have driven you over the edge within a single day.”

“I would have known,” Will countered. “I wouldn’t have worried if I was losing my mind.”

“You did not, anyway,” Hannibal pointed out. “Even in your darkest moments, you did not truly doubt yourself. Part of you always believed you were in control.”

“My mistake,” Will said. “Clearly, you were the one in control.”

“I can only do as you allow me.”

Will shook his head. “I didn't  _ allow  _ this, Hannibal. You took this. You did what you  wanted.” 

“You knew from the first day that I had misled you, and you chose to remain blind,” Hannibal said. “At any point, you could have opened your eyes. Even now, you give me the chance to win back the affections you'd grown for me.”

“I don't know what I want,” Will admitted. “I'm hoping I'll figure it out before you find some other way to drag me under.”

“You have given me quite the advantage, telling me in advance this way.”

“Yeah, well,” Will muttered. “Maybe I'm hoping you'll win.”

“Is this a competition?” Hannibal asked. “I preferred to think of it as a negotiation.”

“You can think whatever you want,” Will replied. “I just want answers. I want something to make sense.”

“You seemed to have a rather good sense for my stance on this,” Hannibal said, before cupping Will’s elbow. “Hold still.”

The needle pricked Will’s skin, and he was reminded of the faint twinges of pain he’d felt earlier, hardly enough to ruin his pleasure. He choked back the warmth that threatened to rise at the comparison. 

“If you're trying to say I was right, guessing you loved me,” Will said, thinking back to a long forgotten conversation. “Your romantic declarations are quite lacking.” 

Hannibal’s thumb brushed in a wide, soothing arc across his arm. “The ancient Greeks classified love into many forms. Eros, for erotic love and lust. Philia for platonic love, ludus for a childish love. If I were to put a name to my feelings for you, I'd liken them to the concept of  _ agape.” _

“Isn’t that the love of God?” 

Hannibal's lips twitched up toward a smile. “Not necessarily. It is transcendental love. A feeling that exceeds all description or understanding, all-consuming in its intensity.”

Will swallowed. “What’s the Greek term for emotional manipulation?” 

Hannibal thumb drummed against the needle beneath his skin, jostling it lightly, making Will wince in discomfort. “I would name it love of its own kind, all the same.”

“Yeah, well,” Will muttered. “You helped a teenager hide a body.”

Hannibal let out a soft laugh. “True. I suppose my judgement is not the most trustworthy.”

“Everyone else seems to think so,” Will said. “Someone finds me attractive and suddenly we have to question everything they say.”

Hannibal’s hand slid down his forearm, circling his wrist and lifting his arm, so the man could place a kiss where the IV entered his skin. “Attraction was not the problem. No one would deny you are handsome. It is simply a question of if you are sane.”

“Because you let me walk around with a brain infection.”

There was a beat of silence. “...Quite so.”

Will shifted, uncomfortable in the bed suddenly. “Hannibal?”

“Yes?”

Will blurted the words without much thought. “I don't love you.”

Hannibal didn't even falter, loving touches along his arm continuing, the drip of the IV the only sound in the room. 

Will saw the shadow of the facade Hannibal had presented upon their first meeting return to his eyes, followed by the same determined glint from that first breakfast they shared. 

He could hear the echo of that conversation in the gentle way Hannibal assured him, “You will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finished this and am posting it from work on my lunch so appreciate me


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannibal has four days, but he only really needs the one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops im alive!!! heres some murder gays

They finished Will’s treatment in a silence that was neither comfortable nor oppressive - it simply felt necessary, like the hush that fell over a library. Neither of them spoke up to break it, recognizing that the lack of conversation between them was all that was keeping them together. 

When Hannibal pulled the needle from his skin and began the process of deconstructing the IV, Will reached out, stopping him. 

“You may as well leave it up,” he said. “I’ll have to be back tomorrow, right?”

“That is true,” Hannibal allowed. He set the equipment aside, instead. 

Will started to move, going to climb out of the bed, when Hannibal caught his eye. The man said nothing, but his face held the shadow of a request he was holding back from making.

Will paused, hesitated, and then slowly shifted again, lowering himself back against the pillows.

Hannibal joined him a moment later, flicking off the light and settling in beside him.

Without a single word uttered, either in explanation or in goodnight, the two men turned in to sleep.

  
  
  
  


The first time Will had slept beside Hannibal, he’d kept to his own personal space until consciously deciding to reach out across the distance.

As though to be purposely contrary to his wishes, though, Will’s body had chosen this night to rebel, and had him move to lay close at Hannibal’s side.

They were not entwined or anything so dramatic, Will’s subconscious too used to being surrounded by dogs to care much for the presence of body heat, but his cheek was pressed against Hannibal’s arm, and his own hand had splayed out across the man’s stomach.

The petty part of him wanted to move away, returning to his own space and firmly ignoring that he’d ever moved at all. 

A weaker part of him wanted to move closer, turning the partial contact into something bigger. 

The part of him that won was the part that chose to look up, acting on a hunch.

Hannibal proved him right, meeting his gaze with tired eyes. 

Will gave a weak hum in acknowledgement. “What time is it?”

“Late,” Hannibal replied. “You’ve only been asleep a few hours, I believe.”

Will took that to mean Hannibal  _ hadn’t _ been sleeping. He deliberately did not respond to that fact, instead choosing to grunt and turn his head back against the skin of Hannibal’s bicep, returning to the position he’d woken in. 

A few seconds passed, and then Will felt Hannibal’s other hand reach across to start threading lightly through his hair.

Abruptly, Will shifted, turning over and away. Denying Hannibal that contact was perhaps a childish act, but Will was too conflicted already. He didn’t need gentle touches wearing away at the indignation and anger he felt at being manipulated.

Hannibal had risked Will’s life, because he wanted Will to love him at any and all costs. Will wasn’t about to just give him the result he wanted without consequence. 

Now if only the part of him that wanted nothing more than to turn back to Hannibal’s side, close the distance, and drift off with him, would just  _ shut up.  _

  
  
  
  
  


Will woke in the morning and headed to his guest room, dressing for work and heading out the door without going even close to the kitchen, avoiding Hannibal entirely. 

He lectured his classes with tension between his shoulders and a wandering mind, the forced calm of the night before leaving him just on the edge of panic. 

Will kept seeing increasingly dark parts of Hannibal Lecter, and he wasn’t sure how deep they went. He didn’t know at what point he’d reach the bottom of the pit in the man’s soul that held all these twisted secrets. 

It was almost a relief when Beverly appeared in his doorway. 

“Hey, Will,” she greeted, when he approached her after his last students left. “Hate to bother you again-...”

“No, it’s fine,” he told her. “I could use the distraction.”

“Uh oh,” she grinned at him. “Trouble in paradise?”   
Will shook his head. “It’s a long story. Don’t worry about it. What did you need?”

Beverly hesitated for a moment, clearly curious, but rolled with it quickly. “We got the new body in the lab, if you wanted to come take a look.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Let me just grab my stuff.”

She gave it about halfway through their walk to the lab before she gave in to her curiosity. “So what’s going on that you need a distraction from?”

Will grit his teeth. “I said it’s a long story.”

“I’ve got a long time.”

Will huffed out an irritated breath. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Yikes. That bad?” She nudged him. “C’mon, tell me. Is it Hannibal? Are you guys fighting?” 

Will didn’t even respond before she laughed out loud. 

“Your  _ face.  _ Christ, I didn’t even know the guy was capable of pissing someone off that bad. What did he even do?”

“I  _ just  _ said-...”

“Be vague, then.”

Will closed his eyes, taking a steadying breath, and reminded himself that Beverly was doing something that among friends could be considered normal. It wasn’t her fault that Will’s situation wasn’t a standard gossip topic. “He didn’t tell me something he should have,” Will said. “That’s all you’re getting.”

“If he didn’t tell you, how’d you find out?” she asked. “Something tells me it wasn’t a late confession.”

“I figured it out,” Will said. 

Beverly winced. “Ouch. Detective work against the boyfriend is always a rough time.”

There was no response Will could make to that that wasn’t petty or bitter, so he said nothing.

The lab door appeared in their field of view, and she nudged him again. “Well, now you can focus on something a little more fun. Mutilated corpses! Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

She didn’t wait for a reply, just moved to open the door, holding it for Will.

The second Will was in the room, Zeller looked up, letting out an exaggerated groan.

“You’re gonna be in here every day, aren’t you?” he asked. 

Will wasn’t in the mood. “If you can figure out how to do this without me, I’d be happy to give you a wide berth, I promise.”

“Oooh,” Price started with a grin. “Someone’s testy.”

Will crossed the room, pulling on gloves and unveiling the body, all while pretending he didn’t see Beverly making exaggerated ‘knock it off’ motions at the lab boys in his peripherals. 

“Where is the pill bottle?”

“Oh, you saw that?” Jimmy asked, before appearing at his side with the bottle in hand, passing it over. “I’m dying to know what our resident Holmes thinks of this one.”

Will turned the bottle over, examining every side of the prescription bottle, before popping it open. 

Inside was a clump of wilted flower petals. 

“We tested one of them,” Jimmy informed him. “Belladonna.” 

“Poison,” Will murmured. “Poison in a pill bottle.”

There were so many things going on at once, with this body. 

“She was holding the ability to decide if he lived or died, and he wouldn’t know until it was too late which one she’d picked.”

Will’s stomach churned as he spoke, and he wondered how much of the case was genuine deduction from empathy and how much was him projecting. 

“Looks like she chose death,” Brian muttered.

“His heart was her birth,” he said. “She chose both. She killed what he was to make something new.”

Anxiety clutched at his chest, and he hoped he wasn’t distorting the case with his own issues, letting Hannibal’s influence bleed into the cases he worked. 

“His partner,” Will continued. “The one he courted, there was something about them. Maybe they were a different killer, or just an ordinary person. He  _ made  _ them this way.”

_ He forced them to love him, as he loved them. _

_ See?  _

Will grit his teeth, shoving off the counter and setting the bottle aside. He dumped the crumpled flowers back into the bottle and turned his attention, instead, to the body on the table. 

If the heart was the partner, the woman was the Ripper’s image. Maybe she would reveal something about him. 

“What was missing?” he asked. 

“No organs,” Price told him. “Just the muscle in her abdomen.”

Will frowned. Perhaps it was adding to the metaphor, letting them know that the Ripper sacrificed nothing for this. That all that was given was given freely. 

Maybe he just already had enough from the whole body of the other victim. 

He didn’t know. For once, empathy was beyond him, the frustration of his own life making it impossible to see where Hannibal stopped and the Ripper began.

There was something he was missing, here, and he had no idea how to find it.

  
  
  


Hannibal had set the dinner party for Saturday, and with Will’s new challenge, that meant the event would serve as the last day of his test. At the end of that party, Hannibal’s life would be forfeit, left for Will to decide.

As such, he intended it to be a good one. 

Will had dug deep enough, now, that it shouldn’t take him too long to put the final pieces together and figure out who the Ripper - who  _ Hannibal _ \- really was. 

Will had kissed him and threatened to kill him, and both had filled Hannibal with a rush of adrenaline and clutched at his heart with the strength of his love for Will.

Whatever happened, however their story ended, Hannibal was eager to watch it unfold. Even with his mistakes, he could regret nothing that had led him to this point. 

His heart was out in the open, now. 

It was up to Will where they’d go next.

  
  
  
  


When Will arrived at Hannibal’s house that evening, they did not speak to each other.

Will sat and flipped through the file of the Ripper case and the most recent victims, and Hannibal prepared dinner. They ate together in silence. Hannibal retreated to his room, and Will followed, allowing him to set up and run the IV again.

“You aren’t trying very hard.”

Hannibal’s lip twitched toward a smile when Will finally spoke to him. “I have nothing yet to say.”

“Implying you’ll have something later?”

“Most definitely.”

Will closed his eyes, tipping his head back on Hannibal’s pillow. “You’re planning something.”

“The dinner party,” Hannibal confirmed. “Saturday. I intend to focus my efforts on making it a night to remember, for both of us.”

“Ominous.”

“Quite.”

“Well then,” Will said. “I guess I’ll have to wait and see, won’t I?”

Hannibal smiled, thumb rubbing lightly against the lines of Will’s veins. “I certainly hope so.”

  
  
  
  


Will’s next day of classes passed in a blur, and he spent around an hour hovering in the lab, letting Beverly recap all their test results they’d gotten so far and lead him toward another round of dead end conclusions, empathy for the killer still failing him in light of the emotional turmoil in his soul. His next night passed in the same near silence as the one before, only speaking with Hannibal to the extent he had to to navigate their evening. 

Friday brought with it an anxiety he couldn’t shake, and he avoided the lab entirely. He didn’t return to Hannibal’s for a while, either, spending the afternoon at his own house, buried under his dogs to try and soothe the ache in his soul, only making the drive to Baltimore when absolutely necessary to make it for the nighttime treatment.

Saturday arrived, and Will woke in Hannibal’s bed alone, staring at the ceiling and considering how he’d ended up where he was.

He was not any more certain of his feelings, nor did he have any idea where to go next. What he did know, though, was that Hannibal had a party planned - and apparently, he intended it to be a big one.

“Do you need me to prepare for anything?” Will asked Hannibal when he reached the kitchen, a hollow courtesy more than anything. 

“I will manage,” Hannibal replied. “You’re welcome to spend the day at home, if you’d rather not stay. The party won’t be until this evening.” His hands were on thin cuts of meat, bending and shaping them into artful designs. “Come back around seven and shower here, and I’ll have an outfit prepared for you.”

“Yeah,” Will accepted, not bothering to try and counter the control. There was no telling how the night would go, but the chances were Hannibal’s control over his life would not last much longer. 

As he headed home, that sat heavy in his stomach, less a comfort and more a grounding point.

By the end of the night, Hannibal would no longer control him. Whether Will met him in the middle, or took him down completely, his life would be his own again.

By the end of the night, Will would be free of this struggle.

Now if he only knew what freedom would look like. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter is the party and lemme tell yall,,,ive been hype about it since chapter 1


End file.
